Myth:
Business is opposed to climate action, and because business is the backbone of the economy, any attempt to stop global warming would be bad for jobs and economy activity.
Fact:
Business was opposed to climate change not so many years ago, but this has changed of late. An increasing number of large corporations are now divesting from fossil fuels and/or supporting a move to net zero emissions. As of 2026, over 200 global financial institutions had announced plans to exit from coal. They include Mizuho (the world’s largest private financier of coal), the ING Group, BNP Paribas, Barclays Bank, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Allianz, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the Norwegian Government Pension Fund (the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund). In Australia, both the Business Council of Australia and the National Farmers Federation support the move to net zero by 2050, as well as the Albanese government’s emissions reduction target.
Of course, there are still large corporations that are staunchly opposed to climate action, but these are mostly in the fossil fuel industry. These companies see renewable energy as an existential threat to their business plan, and want to extract every barrel of oil, tonne of coal and cubic metre of gas while they still can.
A protest against Exxon, one of the companies least committed to climate action. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
Sources:
“200 and counting: Global financial institutions are exiting coal,” Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, 4/5/23. https://ieefa.org/resources/200-and-counting-global-financial-institutions-are-exiting-coal