In This Issue Vol. 30 Issue 7

THE NEW EUROPEAN AGE OF CORPORATE EMISSIONS REGULATIONS Why Does Scope 3 Matter? The Scope 3 Pivot Point The Road Ahead for Large Multinationals ETHERMAIL OUR PARTNERS UPCOMING EVENTS WHERE'S MARK?

THE NEW EUROPEAN AGE OF CORPORATE EMISSIONS REGULATIONS

By Berit Anderson

Why Read: While the US fights over word choice and pushes Europe further away, the EU's new omnibus proposal - and others like it around the world - are still putting pressure on corporate emissions, even toned down.

______

Do words matter? Yes.

In the US, those working to respond to the climate emergency are having a rough quarter:

• Academics studying Earth systems are weighing the pros and cons of removing the term "climate change" or "global warming" from their papers or research descriptions altogether, as the National Science Foundation has issued a list of banned words.
  
  
• Leaders in corporate investor relations are pressuring internal innovation projects to change their websites and framing to avoid conflicts with activist shareholders and to preserve what federal funding opportunities might remain in the wake of DOGE.
  
  
• Civil servants across clean energy are getting canned - including one friend overseeing the long-duration energy-storage portfolio at the Department of Energy, who was first locked out of its system entirely, then fired without cause. 

There are sacrifices made by ceding language that will weaken citizen awareness of the climate emergency, slow corporate innovation, and diminish the appearance of the threat across academic studies.

"No papers on climate change in the last three years? It must not be a real problem."

"Oh no, your house burned down? You should've hired the private firefighting brigade in advance, with all this dry weather we've been having. I was so glad I bought the fireproof Maserati instead of those Tesla things. Basically tinder."

Still, it is more important to focus on impact than to fight battles over word choice.