Ignorance is Strength: Climate Change, Corporate Governance, Politics, and the English Language

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-1-2025

Abstract

This article discusses the Orwellian nature of the current debate about the role of climate change in corporate governance, by juxtaposing the arguments of climate-denying commentators about corporate governance against the objective facts. Settled law allows corporations and institutional investors to take into account risk factors like climate change and may require them to consider those risks when they are directly material, as climate change is for many industries. If anything, the corporate response to climate change has been too tepid, and the pace of climate change and its corresponding harm is outrunning efforts to constrain it. No simple answer exists to addressing the dangers this Orwellian manipulation creates. But identifying that behavior and holding political elites responsible for a basic acceptance of fact and for consistently applying their stated principles is a necessary start.

Keywords

climate change, corporate governance, environmental harm, environmental issues, "environmental, social, and governance (ESG)", Orwellian approach, political spending, environmental responsibility, institutional investors, stakeholders, board of directors, Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), fiduciary duties, ESG risk

Publication Title

Journal of Law and Political Economy

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