Facts: The number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes nearly doubled in the past thirty years. The flow of melting ice leaving Greenland’s glaciers has doubled in the past ten years. Massive portions of Antarctica’s ice mass are crumbling. 279 plant and animal species are responding to the climatic changes and migrating to be closer to the poles. If we continue in this fashion, history will record the following events in the coming years: a doubling of the number of deaths directly attributable to global warming to 300,000 annually, a global rise in sea levels of six metres - with catastrophic results.- and the extinction of more than a million plant and animal species.

Figures: How many more scientific reports will it take? How many statistics and how much supporting evidence? The data available is overpowering. This is not to say there is no debate. But this concerns the exact figures and predictions. Of course there is an alternative opinion (thankfully) and there are scientists with a different point of view and differing models. But the consensus is that the recent changes in the environment indicate that life on earth is threatened by a single species: humankind. We also agree that that it is up to those same humans to bring about a change for the better, and to shift the tide despite the alarming predictions.

And now back to us. What does it to take to convince the corporate sector and the government of the necessity of change? In addition to ethical arguments and an appeal to responsibilities (economic motives have structurally undermined sustainable concepts at corporate and government level), an economic incentive should be included. This is one of the reasons why the former British Chancellor Gordon Brown invited economist Lord Nicholas Stern to calculate the economic effects of the greenhouse effect. His conclusion in the Stern Review (2006): “Climate change is the biggest threat to the global economy. Human activities in the coming decades may lead to an enormous economic and social dislocation in the course of this century and in the next, of a size that recalls the two world wars and the depression of the first half of the twentieth century. Poor countries will be affected disproportionately, while the rich countries are mostly responsible for the current problems.

An international report published in March 2008 by KPMG, ‘Climate Changes Your Business’, shows that the risks of climate change and its economic impact are consistently underestimated by companies. Worse, a number of business sectors are currently in a danger zone, as the risks arising from climate change for these sectors are substantial, while insufficient measures have been taken to counter these risks. The KPMG report identifies four major types of risks: 1) increasing regulatory and legislative requirements; 2) physical circumstances; 3) reputational risks; 4) liability. KPMG believes that it is essential that companies invest in a good understanding of the risks and where necessary in risk management. Companies should also ensure that they are capable of accounting for their climate policy, for companies will be increasingly confronted with questions about this matter (also by consumers).

This may sound like something you as an individual cannot do anything about. Is it hard to see what you, or your department, or your company can contribute to the prevention of an increase in global warming. Despite the doubts you may have, there really are ways in which you can make an immediate difference! By choosing for sustainable development, by awareness of how products are produced in low wage countries, by awareness of what your countries ‘take’ from the earth and by finding ways in which you can give it back. But above all by making use of your talents, influence and creative ideas to tackle a problem that is of strategic and vital importance: climate change and the protection of biodiversity.