Globally Relevant Policies and Processes
Overview
Have you heard about the Paris Climate Agreement?
What about the international climate 'COP' sessions that make headlines from time to time?
In this section you will learn about the global climate policies and processes designed to boost international cooperation in tackling the climate crisis. These instruments have a profound impact on business. Your organisation's resilience and long-term viability depend on understanding and effectively engaging with climate policies. The actions you take today will shape your organisation’s success amidst the ever-evolving climate policy landscape.
What you need to know
Integrating climate-related policies and processes into your organisation’s strategies is vital for long-term resilience and success.
Here are the three main instruments that underpin global climate policy:
Global Cooperation
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, is an international treaty that lays the foundation for worldwide cooperation on climate change.
The Paris Agreement
The Paris Agreement is an international binding treaty under the UNFCCC. It aims to limit global warming to under 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The Marrakech Partnership
The Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action is a collaborative framework that opens the door to a world of extraordinary opportunities.
These instruments allow for global discussions and collaboration between national governments, business, scientists and other stakeholders to tackle climate change together, and set the agenda for policy changes.
Broader context
The IPCC, the international body for climate science highlighted in section B, reiterates there is a policy ‘emissions gap’ ¹, which shows that the current climate policies of all countries in the world are not sufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has developed a useful graphic that highlights the policy gaps in relation to the 1.5°C goal.
Source: Climate Analytics and New Climate Institute
Dash for gas a serious threat to the Paris Agreement's warming limit | Climate Action Tracker
Businesses have an important role to play in helping to close this gap and, as a board director, you can help to drive this by:
- Encouraging and guiding your organisation to adopt bold climate action
- Ensuring your organisation has credible climate commitments, with robust measurement and disclosure, and a clear climate transition plan in place.
- Ensuring that your organisation’s policy positions, and the industry associations it is part of, contribute to creating a conducive environment for high priority climate policy interventions which will ultimately support your organisation’s net zero transition.
Your organisation may have ambitious climate goals, but if the industry associations you are involved with do not align with global climate ambitions, supporting fossil fuels interests for instance, your GHG reduction goals could be considered as greenwashing.
Initiatives such as InfluenceMap, are mapping the climate policy advocacy by companies and in different regions of the world, making it easier to visualise which companies are genuinely delivering climate action in contrast to greenwashing claims.
Now that you have a broader understanding of global policies and climate change projections, here are some ways you can contribute to make a difference.
How to take action
There is a general trend for increasing climate policies and processes in different countries across the world as the urgency for action becomes increasingly understood. Many jurisdictions are implementing or considering both policy incentives and penalties for business to reduce their GHG emissions and take climate action. As a board director, you can play an important role in helping to encourage a stable climate policy landscape globally and locally by participating in relevant consultations, industry and policy working groups and initiatives.
A growing number of ambitious initiatives for corporate climate action highlight the critical role of business action in achieving positive climate outcomes. Here are two examples:
The Race to Zero
The Race to Zero is a UN-backed global campaign mobilising non-state actors - companies, cities, regions, financial and educational institutions - to take immediate and robust action. The aim? To halve global emissions by 2030 and deliver a healthier, fairer zero-carbon world.
The Race to Resilience
The Race to Resilience is the UN-backed global campaign to catalyse a step-change in global ambition for climate resilience. It puts people and nature at the forefront in pursuit of a resilient world where we don’t just survive climate shocks and stresses, but thrive in spite of them.
Finally, here are some practical questions you can raise in the boardroom to ensure your organisation is appropriately engaging with climate policy development:
- Which climate policies are relevant for our business?
- What climate policy engagement has taken place or is planned by the organisation?
- Is our policy position consistent with a climate transition strategy that is aligned with net-zero by 2050, as per the analysis and guidance of the IPCC?
- Where are decisions on climate policy engagement taken, and has the organisation assigned responsibility at board level for oversight of climate policy engagement policies and practices?
- Do we disclose our industry association affiliations? Are these associations related to any negative climate lobbying?
Mark section as complete?
Join a Chapter
Your regional Chapter can support you with tools and resources to enable effective corporate climate governance in your region.
Join a ChapterResources
1 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2023). Synthesis Report of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). Online access: IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf
Further reading
- More information on initiatives to support your organisation taking climate action: Race to Zero and Race to Resilience
- Resources on ‘Corporate climate policy engagement: A briefing for board directors’
- Find your organisation’s global positioning on climate policy engagement ranked by InfluenceMap