Hundreds Of U.S. Businesses Urge Trump To Uphold Paris Climate Deal

Nov. 17, 2016
Merrit Kennedy

Hundreds of businesses such as Starbucks, General Mills and Hewlett Packard are asking President-elect Donald Trump to follow through on U.S. commitments to combat climate change. They argue it's good for business.

More than 360 companies and investors made their plea in an open letter to Trump, President Obama and members of Congress. They called on Trump to "continue U.S. participation in the Paris agreement," which he has threatened to scrap, and invest in the "low carbon economy at home and abroad."

The signatories also include DuPont, eBay, Nike, Unilever, Levi Strauss & Co. and Hilton. They issued the letter Wednesday during a major U.N. climate conference in Marrakech, Morocco, where representatives of nearly 200 countries were gathered to hash out the details of the Paris climate deal.

As members of the U.S. business and investor community, they emphasized their "deep commitment to addressing climate change" and pledged to do their part, "in our operations and beyond," to meet the goals of the agreement to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

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"Environmental groups have been left with the daunting prospect that, with a climate skeptic in the White House, they will need to look directly to corporations to assume the mantle of leading the country's response to climate change," as The New York Times reported. "But without strict regulatory standards or oversight, companies will be left freer to pick and choose which climate-friendly policies to pursue, and which they will choose to ignore or abandon."
[In which case, the less responsible ones might have a financial edge.]