Need To Pretend You Care About A Destabilizing Climate? Davos Shows You How!

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — Marc Benioff, the Salesforce CEO, announced on Thursday that more than 300 companies have signed on to his Trillion Tree Campaign, which aims to plant, restore, or conserve 1 trillion trees by the end of the decade. Benioff broke the news in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum, which is sponsoring the initiative. “The next decade must see unprecedented levels of collaboration if we are to meet global climate, biodiversity, and Sustainable Development Goals,” WEF CEO Klaus Schwab said in a statement. “1t.org presents an important example of how stakeholders from all walks of life and all ages can work together to achieve a single, globally significant goal.”

Earlier this week, Benioff — a WEF trustee who is considered one of the more forward-thinking CEOs when it comes to social and environmental issues — and Schwab were seen getting along swimmingly with President Trump, who delivered the WEF’s opening address on Tuesday. Though the climate crisis is ostensibly at the top of the forum’s 2020 agenda, its headlining speaker spent nearly 30 minutes touting how he’s slashed regulations, praising how he’s lifted up the fossil-fuel industry, and bashing climate activism. Trump also announced that the United States will join the Trillion Tree Campaign. Herein lies the problem.

Regardless of Benioff’s motivations, signing on to the Trillion Tree Campaign offers Trump and business leaders who care little about the climate crisis a convenient, hassle-free way to make it appear like they’re taking meaningful action to address it. Though the Trillion Tree Campaign is undoubtedly a good initiative, it’s not going to matter much if the banks and investment firms Davos welcomes with open arms don’t rethink the way they do business and divest from fossil fuels. As 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg put it, “Planting trees is good, of course, but it is nowhere near enough of what is needed.”

For Trump and others, signing on to the initiative is a textbook case of “greenwashing,” a practice that has become all-too-common as climate activism has ascended to the mainstream and corporate interests have been pressured to adopt more sustainable practices. Because these interests aren’t about to sacrifice any of their profits, even if it means saving the world, they’re saving face by making promises to cut emissions they have no intention of keeping, or throwing money at initiatives like the Trillion Tree Campaign. Though 300 companies and a handful of governments may have signed on to Benioff’s initiative, a PwC survey of CEOs at Davos found that they rank “climate change and environmental damage” as the 11th greatest risk to their companies’ potential for growth. Number one? “Over-regulation,” of course.

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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/davos-business-leaders-greenwashing-trillion-trees-942063/