\n <\/figure>\n \n \n The Chamber of Commerce says it’s woke. Its actions say Black lives really don\u2019t matter.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps its most staunch opposition is to a push by progressives to force corporations to disclose to shareholders the contributions a firm\u2019s current operations have to climate change \u2013 and any efforts to reduce them. The effect of the warming climate on the bottom line of the economy and government budgets is already being felt in the exponential increase<\/a> over the last half century of hurricanes, wildfires, and severe storms racking up billions of dollars in damages. Portfolios directly tied to the fossil fuel industry are at particular risk \u2013 the more that nations invest in renewable energy, the greater the chance that coal, oil, and gas infrastructure would become so-called \u201cstranded assets,\u201d reaching obsolesence or falling out of use before its time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Financial Times analysis<\/a> last year identified $900 billion worth of potential stranded assets in the fossil fuel industry, adding that one third of the current value of the top oil and gas companies would \u201cevaporate\u201d if nations engaged in a concerted effort to fight climate change. Holding global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) would require leaving 59 percent of fossil fuel reserves in the ground. An even more aggressive effort of limiting the rise to 1.5 C (2.7 F) would leave more than 80 percent in the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The pressure to slow oil extraction compelled the Biden administration to issue<\/a> an executive order in May mandating that federal agencies assess climate risk to government operations and across the economy. \u201cThe failure of financial institutions to appropriately and adequately account for and measure these physical and transition risks threatens the competitiveness of U.S. companies and markets, the life savings and pensions of U.S. workers and families, and the ability of U.S. financial institutions to serve communities,\u201d the order said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden himself cannot directly order<\/a> disclosures from corporations. But he can task federal agencies with devising regulations that go beyond the current system of voluntary disclosures from fossil fuel companies. The oil and gas industry\u2019s chief lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, in the face of growing public and investor pressure, last month issued voluntary greenhouse gas reduction guidelines. Such nonbinding prescriptions are laughable on their face given the industry\u2019s opposition to the Obama administration\u2019s Clean Power Plan (and praise for the Trump administration\u2019s rollback of it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Part and parcel of getting away from fossil fuels is ameliorating environmental injustice. Many studies show how Black and Latino people disproportionately live close to pollution from fossil fuel facilities, waste sites, and transportation exhaust. While White Americans are the disproportionate source of fossil fuel particulate emissions via their outsize consumption of goods and services, Black and brown people disproportionately breathe them in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden\u2019s executive order acknowledges this dichotomy, calling for the federal government to identify areas where investment in reaching net-zero emissions advances \u201ceconomic opportunity, worker empowerment, and environmental mitigation, especially in disadvantaged communities and communities of color.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Biden, House Democrats recently took action regarding climate-risk disclosures, passing a bill requiring public companies to report environmental, social, and governance metrics to shareholders. It barely passed<\/a> by a 215-214 vote and is certain to face fierce opposition in a bitterly divided Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, the governance consulting world has noted momentum for such disclosures — as well as their relation to the health of poor and vulnerable communities. The ACA Group, a financial services company that advises on risk, said<\/a> in May: \u201cDots continue to be connected between high-priority issues such as diversity, equity & inclusion, climate change, and social justice both in government policy and in the public consciousness. Investors would do well to remain current on these developments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One thing we know for sure is that fossil fuel interests and their enablers, notably among them the Chamber, remain vigilant in their cynicism toward these developments, fighting back hard against disclosure at every turn. The Chamber, the American Petroleum Institute, and right-wing think tanks like the Koch Brothers\u2019 Americans for Prosperity<\/a> and the like-minded Heritage Foundation are either outright opposing<\/a> or interrogating the legality of disclosure efforts in Congress, as well as Biden\u2019s effort to increase the scrutiny of disclosures to the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chamber opposed<\/a> the House measure, complaining that stronger scrutiny on governance is a \u201cmisguided approach\u201d that would \u201cimpose enormous compliance costs.\u201d Americans for Prosperity attacked the prospect of new SEC regulations, calling it a \u201csweeping expansion of government power and mission creep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of the groups also banded together in a joint letter<\/a> last month to oppose efforts in Congress to provide tax incentives<\/a> for renewable energy and energy efficiency. That is no shock since health care and social justice have always been of little concern for the fossil fuel industry. Between two-thirds and three-fourths of contributions to congressional candidates in the 2020 election cycle from ExxonMobil<\/a>, ConocoPhillips<\/a>, and Chevron<\/a> went to Republican candidates, nearly all of whom oppose serious climate change mitigation. Elliot Negin, my colleague at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where I am a fellow, wrote a comprehensive review<\/a> of how ExxonMobil has given $37 million to funded climate-denier groups the last two decades and, like Chevron, is a patron saint of the Chamber of Commerce, giving it millions of dollars to, among other things, renovate its Washington, D.C., offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A stark reminder of what that money nets ExxonMobil came with the release this month of a Greenpeace UK sting video. In it, an ExxonMobil lobbyist boasts<\/a> about how the oil giant publicly supported a carbon tax in the U.S. under the assumption that it would never be passed by a sharply divided Congress. The lobbyist called the Biden administration\u2019s goals to slash greenhouse gas emissions \u201cinsane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is truly insane, and utterly ignored by this corporate whining, is the downwind and downstream effects of their business operations on communities of color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For environmental justice activists, the drive for climate change risk disclosure is merely a placeholder for the real work that needs to be done. Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network<\/a> and Erika Thi Patterson of the Action Center on Race and the Economy<\/a> both responded to Biden\u2019s executive order by labeling it simply a commendable and critical first step. They added<\/a> that any drive for \u201cnet-zero\u201d emissions must involve scuttling schemes that allow polluters to balance their emissions sheets with reductions in privileged, whiter communities while at-will boosting the transport and processing of fossil fuels in low-income frontline neighborhoods and communities of color. Goldtooth said he was worried that \u201cnet-zero\u201d could end up as a policy of \u201cminimizing risk, rather than stopping the actual expansion of fossil fuels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
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