Business must step up on climate change when governments falter

THE pushing, pulling and fraying of wills and self-interest that went into the G-20 communique on climate change shows how difficult it is to sustain international cooperation on addressing global warming.

Meaningful, steps to avert a global disaster should start with the world's biggest nations. The unfortunate reality is that those nations, and the United States in particular, are not providing the leadership that is sorely needed. In that vacuum, businesses need to step up.

At the recent G-20 summit in Buenos Aires, 19 of the 20 member nations pledged to implement the "irreversible" Paris Agreement on climate change. The notable odd man out was America, whose president continues to deny the causes of global warming and the dire need to slow it down, despite conclusions to the contrary by his own government.