Tip Sheets

U.N. climate report shows governments, businesses lagging

Media Contact

Jeff Tyson

A United Nations report released on Tuesday shows the world is on track to experience the worst consequences of climate change, with global temperatures rising and governments failing to adequately reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Glen Dowell

Associate Professor of Management and Organizations

Glen Dowell is a corporate sustainability researcher and professor of management and organizations at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He says the report underscores that governments, as well as corporations, are lagging behind their responsibility to decarbonize.

Dowell says:

“The latest UNEP report confirms what we’ve suspected for a while – we are nowhere near where we need to be on greenhouse gas emissions. Governments are being too timid (or are ignoring the problem altogether) and too many businesses are lagging behind in decarbonizing their products and services. 

“We need investment in innovations for both mitigation and adaptation to climate change. It’s time to stop ‘rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic’ (to steal an old David Letterman line) and put pressures on both governments and businesses to reverse the increases that the UNEP report outlines. Every month we delay makes the changes we will need to adopt more painful and expensive.”

Cornell University has television, ISDN and dedicated Skype/Google+ Hangout studios available for media interviews.