Role of the Public Relations & Communications Association in the era of climate disruption.
On September 10th, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a formal warning that humanity faced potential extinction, unless radical steps were taken to reduce global carbon emissions by 2020. He warned that increasing the current level of atmospheric carbon emissions in the atmosphere from 410 parts per million, would lead to uncontrollable runaway warming and that humanity needed to instead reduce emissions to a safer level of 350 ppm.
The Climate Media Coalition was founded to work with all aspects of the media industry to encourage them to step up and embrace their crucial leadership role in this existential crisis.
As we view the advertising, marketing, public relations and communications sector to be an important part of the media industry, we are seeking to engage in a dialogue with their leadership to explore what this climate role would mean for them.
For humanity to return to the safe level of 350 ppm, we need to move expeditiously to a carbon negative economy, which would involve keeping almost all remaining fossil fuels in the ground.
It is thus crucial that the enormous talents and resources of this $550 billion industry are focused on promoting a carbon negative world, rather than facilitating ever more high-carbon lifestyles and consumption.
We fully appreciate the profound ethical and economic challenges this imposes for this industry. It is our view that the industry needs an urgent thoughtful debate about what ethical standards are required to be adopted in relation to the carbon intensive industries that it currently serves, just as it has developed ethical standards around racial equality and human rights issues.
We very much welcome opportunities to discuss with industry leaders how we could help initiate and contribute to such a process. We look forward to hearing from you.
The Climate Media Coalition 