Politics of Poverty

Time to pick up the pace on the Road to Paris

May 22, 2015 Posted by Irit Tamir

The Business and Climate Summit was an opportunity for companies to lead by example, but did they?

The world is watching as governments look to tackle climate change in Paris this December. This week multi-national corporations met at the Business and Climate Summit in Paris to discuss their role in this fight. The Business and Climate Summit was an opportunity for companies to lead by example, and though several did show willing, it was not nearly enough to champion the urgent action needed to help combat climate change.

It was noteworthy that most of the panels at the Business and Climate Summit were largely dominated by men from the global North. And not because diversity is just a nice thing to have but rather because those that bear the brunt of climate impacts are women from the global south. And yet, there was not a single voice from any community which is actually suffering from the climate impacts that these multi-nationals are largely responsible for producing.

The food and beverage sector in particular has much to lose from climate change, with farmers bearing the brunt of those losses and the fight against poverty hanging in the balance. To prepare their business for climate change impacts, global food companies should reduce climate risks where they are most present in their agricultural supply chains. Agricultural and deforestation account for 25% of all emissions according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet this was not mentioned at the Summit. Of the Big 10 food and beverage companies included in Oxfam’s Behind the Brands campaign, a few have made significant commitments to reduce their supply chain emissions, some are taking steps to address smallholder resilience, but only a handful are advocating for a strong deal at COP21. Now is the time for the sector to stand together and collectively do far more.

Fossil fuel companies at the Summit recognized the need for an ambitious climate deal in Paris in December, yet none came forward with a plan to reduce their own emissions compatible with keeping global warming below 2°C. Worse, they did not address the need to keep up to 80% of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, with several companies stating that energy demand will continue to be met by fossil fuels for a long time. Apart from the welcomed call to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies, there was a striking lack of concrete commitments.

With nothing new coming from the Business and Climate Summit it seems most companies are willing to crawl on the road to Paris while communities like those in Vanuatu, and the Philippines are looking to sprint as time runs out.

Irit Tamir

Irit Tamir is the Director of Oxfam America's Private Sector Department. In her role, she is focused on working with companies to ensure that their business practices result in positive social and environmental impacts for vulnerable communities throughout the world. She leads a team of advisors that engage the private sector on tax, business and human rights, vaccine equity, legal advocacy, supply chain and labor relations, climate change and gender and racial equity. She oversees the private sector engagement from campaigns and advocacy to collaborations and programs focused on corporate behavior along with a work focused on investors and shareholder advocacy.

Prior to working at Oxfam, Ms. Tamir was the Director of Government Relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, where she successfully lobbied for an extensive federal and state legislative agenda. She co-led the effort to pass the Sudan Divestment Bill in Massachusetts, which required the state pension funds to divest from companies doing business with the Government of Sudan in an effort to halt its human rights violations in Darfur. Ms. Tamir is an attorney with a masters in international law and has taught Business and Human Rights as an adjunct at Boston College Law School. She sits on the Board of the Fair Labor Association and co-chaired the Working Group on Business and Human Rights for the New York City Bar Association. A devoted human rights activist, she has spoken publicly about inequality, human rights, climate resilience, and the food system. Ms. Tamir has had years of experience in government relations and is a former prosecutor who supervised civil rights prosecutions and hate crimes.

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