Will voluntary action, even by huge corporations, ever be enough to fully decarbonize the economy?

Climate One conversations feature all aspects of the climate emergency, the individual and the systemic, the exciting and the scary.

I'm Greg Dalton.

In December 2020, the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions issued a letter, calling on President-elect Biden to return to the Paris Climate Agreement and work with Congress on ambitious, durable, and bipartisan solutions.

The letter was signed by 42 American companies, including Amazon, General Motors, and Walmart, and called climate action a business imperative.

Leveraging American investment and innovation toward the technologies of tomorrow will create jobs,

drive growth, and strengthen U.S. competitiveness.

Near-term climate actions can contribute significantly to our economic recovery.

Companies that are very much pro-climate action that are acting in their own operations

are mostly silent on public policy.

Bill Weil is founder and executive director of Climate Voice and former sustainability director

at Facebook.

He'll join us later in the program to talk about how employees are pressing companies to do more

than talk about climate.

We don't often recognize how important it is to group morale to feel as if you have the

moral high ground. We'll also hear about the history of corporate obstruction from Barbara

Freeze, author of Industrial Strength Denial, Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible,

From the Slave Trade to Climate Change.

First, how are companies and their CEOs taking action beyond their corporate walls on climate,

racial injustice, and other social issues?

What I'm looking for is organizations who are aligning their lobbying and their campaign contributions with all of the

work that they're doing inside their organization.

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