To the Editor:
Re “Big Businesses Quietly Desert Climate Goals” (front page, July 23):
This article surveys the growing number of companies across various industries that are retreating from their climate commitments. I want to emphasize why backtracking by companies in the food sector is especially significant.
Global food systems are responsible for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The article mentions the meat giant JBS and the retailer Walmart. It could have included another: McDonald’s, which announced in May that it does not expect to reach its 2030 climate targets.
This retreat highlights three flaws inherent in many of the food sector’s climate strategies. First, companies like McDonald’s have prioritized short-term profit against long-term sustainability, even as supply chain disruptions from extreme weather affecting crops and commodities increase.
Second, they have neglected reducing the impact of disproportionately high-emitting foods like meat and dairy, and have placed too much faith in faulty or nonscalable solutions.
Third, some businesses fail to advocate — and sometimes work to undermine — voluntary market mechanisms, like the Amazon Soy Moratorium, and regulations like the European Union Deforestation Regulation or the Securities and Exchange Commission’s climate-related disclosure rules, which help to build sustainable, resilient supply chains.
There is still time to fix these errors. Rather than retreat from climate ambitions, companies like McDonald’s should focus on implementing menu shifts to lower-impact, plant-based foods and support industrywide policies that will make their own climate commitments achievable.
Food businesses have much to lose from climate change, but they also have an opportunity to affect positive change now. As this summer blazes on amid wildfires, droughts and heat waves, let’s hope they make the right choices.
Sammy Herdman Denver The writer is a senior campaigner for climate, food and agriculture at Mighty Earth.
To the Editor:
The trend of companies scaling back, delaying or abandoning high-profile climate commitments is hard to miss. But these companies are stepping back from their “bold promises about saving the planet” just as climate-related risks to operations and financial performance — from extreme weather and wildfire smoke to transportation disruptions and resource constraints — are becoming impossible to ignore across supply chains and on balance sheets.
For business leaders who want to succeed in the long term, this is the time to embed climate change into core business discussions and decisions in risk management, finance and operations. Companies that treat climate change as the vital business issue it is will be best positioned to build resilience, strengthen competitiveness and create long-term value in a changing world.
Lea Borkenhagen Washington The writer is an environmental scientist and the senior vice president of EDF+Business at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Trump’s Polls, and His Unreality
To the Editor:
Re “Trump Polls Hit New Low? Not in His Universe” (news analysis, front page, Aug. 3):
It is no surprise that President Trump sees recent polling statistics as “fake.” When you seriously believe that you are more knowledgeable and more loved than anyone in history, nothing negative can break through that barrier of flawed reality.
It is amazing that a White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, did not burst into flames when he said, “No other president in history has accomplished more for hard-working Americans than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more.” Now Mr. Trump’s staff has succumbed to his false reality.
Polls just provide an indication of how someone is doing, and Mr. Trump is obviously not doing well. Taking polls seriously and working to make them more favorable, though, probably isn’t on his to-do list. Our shared experience over the last 10 years should tell us that the lies and disinformation will continue.
Patricia Weller Emmitsburg, Md.
The post When Companies Retreat on Climate Change appeared first on New York Times.
