The Special Case for Pro-Decarbonization Corporate Lobbying

Seldom does civil society ask businesses to do more lobbying, but the energy transition seems to be a special case. On October 14, 2019, eleven major conservation groups, including WWF, the World Resources Institute and the Nature Conservancy  published a full-page ad in the New York Times calling on American CEOs to “lead on climate policy” Financial institutions including The Church of England Pensions Board and Sweden’s AP7 made a similar call globally. One non-profit urges employees to voice their support for strong climate stances by their employers, another ranks firms’ “engagement” and “alignment” with supporting “science based policy” . In a 2024 Gallup-Bentley poll, 54% of those surveyed, and 63% of young people agree that “businesses, in general, should take a public stance on subjects that have to do with climate change”, a higher percentage than for any of the 13 other political topics measured. Some scholars agree.  

At the same time, many worry about undue corporate influence on democracy in general. In the same Gallup Bentley poll, the proportion of Americans who agree that businesses “should take a public stance on current events” in general was at merely 38%, down from 48% in 2022. In last month’s CPR Hub Insight Amit Ron and     Abraham Singer used pro-decarbonization climate change lobbying as an example of how even well-meaning businesses can undermine democracy through wielding their power via managerial fiat, even if it is backed by good intentions. They are not alone. 

How can we square this vigorous support for pro-decarbonization climate lobbying from parts of civil society, investor groups, and the public with the general concerns that business already wields too much of the wrong sort of power in public affairs? Is this just special pleading for environmentalists’ pet projects? While I agree in general with much of Ron and Singer’s pathbreaking work on corporate political responsibility, below I present an argument that climate change does represent a special case that calls for more, rather than less political activity from business. 

One sort of argument is that firms have permission to push swiftly and vigorously for decarbonization policy because it aims to correct a (massive) market failure, thus restoring what the Erb principles call “healthy market ‘rules of the game’”. Another sort of argument could focus on the urgent, possibly existential threat to civilisation that climate change might pose if worst-case scenarios unfold. But this is not just emergency logic: there is a story here about correcting an imbalance in influence. 

Americans actually profess surprising levels of support for many climate policies. According to the Pew Research Center, 68% of US adults support pricing carbon, including 47% of those who are Republican or lean Republican. However current policies and support for decarbonization would almost certainly have been even stronger if they had not been undermined by a long history of misinformation and cynical lobbying from the few companies who have a lot to lose from an energy transition: fossil fuel firms, fossil-invested electric utilities and so on.  Such firms are accused of cynically funding climate denialist groups, pushing a false “balance of

 views” narrative about climate change,  producing misleading advertising, and promoting individual responsibility to obviate the need for climate policy. The political malfeasance continues: more recently, electric utilities have been caught paying actors to support fossil powered power plants, and a lobbyist for one oil company stated that their public support for carbon taxes was actually a duplicitous misdirection ploy.  

Two wrongs will not make a right, and Ron and Singer are correct to caution pro-decarbonization firms against using their political influence in opaque and highly secretive ways, or even imposing their particular approach to the tradeoffs involved. That said, there is a wide range of political tactics to support decarbonization that firms can take that arguably obey democratic norms. With respect to engaging with the public, Ron and Singer agree that appropriate corporate funding of scientific research can pass the bar, but firms, with their huge marketing resources, might also play a role in disseminating high-quality expert assessments with political legitimacy such as those from the IPCC.  (This means, where the IPPC is challenged, being precise about corrections, rather than attempting to discredit the entire entity.)

When it comes to policy decisions, there is no gold-standard “expert assessment” on how to best navigate the questions of values and tradeoffs that guide policy. That said, the Paris Agreement has provided a remarkable consensus of almost every country in the world as to the collective goal we should aim at - a temperature rise “well below” 2°C and effectively net zero emissions “in the second half of this century”. With regard to domestic policy, the differences between sound policies to reach that goal can be overstated, compared to the difference between action and delay. Rather than crafting ideal policy, firms could promise broad support for decarbonization policies in general, and let democratic processes determine the details. Alternatively, bodies exist that aim to gauge what representative samples of informed citizens, deliberating carefully with each other, might choose on climate. Firms could support these kinds of “deliberative polling” or “mini-public” processes on climate change policy and use the outcomes of such deliberations to guide their direct political lobbying.  

Another aspect that makes climate change somewhat special is that many firms are, through their membership in some trade associations, passively obstructing decarbonization policy. The CPR Hub will feature more discussion of this issue soon, but to put it briefly, even firms that aim to be climate leaders might be participating in what Christina Toenshoff calls “collective irresponsibility” - lending their financial support and legitimacy to trade association positions that only benefit the would-be losers from decarbonization policies: fossil fuel industries and other legacy incumbents. Hence, addressing the problematic misalignment between many firms’ lofty climate goals and their tacit support of obstructionist climate policy through trade association is a key part of the civil society call to sustainable corporate political action.  

Voltaire and Montesqieu warned against making the perfect the enemy of the good. A world where any political action by business carefully follows deep democratic norms might be ideal. In our world, some powerful firms have long used their influence undemocratically to prevent adequate regulation of a massive unchecked negative externality. Given this, other firms might need to be encouraged to speak up boldly. 

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