Captains of industry crucial to climate change policy

Over the past decades, the world has become a global village through the discourse on climate change, its consequences,and remedial measures, which also pose uncertainty regarding addressing climate change.

The world is undeniably overshadowed by concerns about climate change and is facing the daunting task of developing effective remedies, policies and frameworks for disaster management.

Judging by the number of political resolutions, scientific research, conferences and awareness campaigns in the media, it is evident that the discussions have elicited widespread concerns, considerable resource allocation, rigorous scientific work, and numerous exercises in tackling the changes brought forth by climate change.

The climate change crisis is making headlines across various platforms and has become a crucial topic for society, business, governments and other concerned bodies globally. One could say that perhaps the fear of the known and the unknown about climate change has become a ticking time bomb.

Concerns about climate change have prompted the 21st century universal global climate agreement adopted at the United Nations Paris Convention on Climate Change, which produced the Paris Agreement in 2015.

The Paris Agreement is a global agreement aimed at addressing climate change, representing consensus among the 196 parties.

The ratifying countries are obligated to implement policies that encourage a reduction in the use of fossil fuels – the primary source of greenhouse gas pollution.

Responsible parties

This global responsibility for environmental protection squarely rests on industry operators who have a duty to implement both public and corporate policies aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change.

Industrial administrators should recognise that the current climate change situation creates a crisis scenario where anticipated global environmental change interacts with the risk-averse tendencies of decision-makers, hindering concrete actions on the part of climate impact administrators.

Consequently, as observed in this article, the Paris Agreement has received more attention in the media as well as in research than the previous treaties and conferences, which mostly catered to the developed world.

The ongoing debate on abating climate change is no doubt yielding fruitful results, but one cannot ignore the fact that most of the remedies, resolutions, and climate change policies and frameworks are yet to be practical. This is due to the fact that vulnerability analysis processes have not been adequately performed by signatory nations to the Paris Agreement.

Complex

The advent of climate change has necessitated a need to harmonise various approaches and models of climate change management by articulating the relevance of clear-cut administrative procedures that have direct bearing on perceived solutions. This implies that there is a need to integrate research efforts within the borders of a nation-state with the view to creating a central administrative framework that has the adequate capacity to guide the implementation of the provisions of the climate change protocol.

Collaborate

The ongoing debate on climate change, its consequences, and remedial measures reflects a global crisis. This implies that the challenges of mitigating climate change persist, while the development of effective policies, strategies, and remedies to combat global warming, which leads to climate change, remains a complex endeavour.

A lack of commitment to address global warming issues is reflected in the open or concealed indifference of policymakers and the perceptions of developed and developing nations.

This highlights that while developed nations succeed through industrial production or service practices that have negative impacts on the climate, developing nations see little reason not to embark on such practices in order to elevate them to the status of developed nations. In this regard, the competition continues to rage on, with national and international policymakers taking sides by initiating and developing policies that seemingly strike a balance in line with natural dictates and anticipations of acceptable policy benchmarks.

However, this article is of the firm view that this approach has failed to reduce the impact of the climate change challenges, primarily due to the exclusion of industrial administrators from the policy planning and implementation stages of the programmes.

So, when this essential group of operators is absent at the discussion table, who provides the necessary and relevant information to guide policy decision-makers?

This article firmly maintains that the role of industrial administrators in climate change policy initiatives is crucial and should not be underestimated.

In conclusion, this article finds that although the policies and frameworks regarding mitigation and adaptation to climate change are in place, they are altered by the perceived future uncertainties of climatic conditions. The future uncertainty influences policymakers and decision-makers to design the best adaptation frameworks. It is high time that experienced industrial administrators and environmental technical think-tanks are engaged to work together with other professionals, such as members of academia and civil society organisations, to produce workable policy directions that would significantly impact the global community with respect to the management of greenhouse gases and adaptation strategies where mitigation has failed.

*Elizabeth Queen Namundyebo is a master's of business administration (public sector management) student at Unam.