Businesses Must Act to Address Climate Change

The world's climate is radically changing and human activity is now contributing to global warming, says a report by the Conference Board, a nonprofit business research organization. The report bases its conclusions on the views of 11 prominent climate scientists who met in June under the auspices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to review the evidence supporting global climate change. "Governments and markets are likely to act" on the expanding scientific evidence that climate change has become "an urgent priority that must be addressed through a variety of measures," the report says, and reduction in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions "is an essential step in any overall strategy for dealing with climate change." Charles J. Bennett, the report's author and a senior research associate at the board, said industry is going to have to take action. "Given the increasing costs of, and uncertainties surrounding, the reliability of traditional energy sources and growing pressures for higher standards of citizenship and contributions to global sustainability, businesses that ignore the debate over climate change do so at their peril," Bennett said.