))
Ep. 18: Attorney and climate entrepreneur Catherine Atkin on California's pathbreaking new greenhouse gas emission disclosure law
Manage episode 379569705 series 3419125
Content provided by Alex Roth. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Alex Roth or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
The Paris climate agreement was designed to keep Earth habitable through a framework of national emission reduction commitments. But actual binding laws enforcing those commitments are still lagging behind. In response, many corporations have promised to reach net zero emissions voluntarily. Many have released plans of how they intend to do that. And consumers and investors have sought to hold them accountable.
Despite some admirable progress, a lot of corporate commitments are based an incomplete patchwork of emission disclosures. And too often, companies’ climate plans are full of caveats, inconsistencies, and outright greenwashing. Federal governmental action to require rigorous climate disclosures is—at best—slow in coming.
But California has found a brilliant workaround. If California were a country, it’s economy would be the fifth largest in the world. By passing a state law that affects companies doing business in California, the state can set a standard that companies are held to around the country and the world.
On October 7, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill called the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, championed by State Senator Scott Wiener. The law will soon require rigorous and standardized disclosures for a huge number of companies that do business in California.
This episode’s guest, Catherine Atkin is an attorney, a climate entrepreneur, and the co-founder of a nonprofit organization called Carbon Accountable. She’s also a CodeX fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. State Senator Wiener’s office has described Catherine as the legal mastermind behind the new law.
21 episodes
Share
