Climate risk is increasingly understood as business risk. COP31 needs to link opportunity with climate action

Résumé détaillé

Business leaders who dismiss COP31 as a diplomatic exercise risk missing signals that will shape future investment, regulation and competitiveness.

At COP30 in Belém, Brazil, well before conflict in the Middle East again exposed vulnerabilities in global energy markets, energy security emerged as one of the defining themes beyond the formal negotiations.

Many businesses recognised that affordable, reliable energy was becoming essential, not only to decarbonisation but to competitiveness and, ultimately, resilience. Few anticipated how quickly geopolitical instability would shake the global economy, reshape energy markets and expose vulnerabilities across global supply chains.

As climate risk rapidly shifts from a future problem to a very material present issue, energy security is only one of the risks that the Australian economy faces. Business leaders who dismiss COP31 as a diplomatic exercise risk missing signals that will shape future investment, regulation and competitiveness.

For more than three decades, success at the annual UN climate summit has largely been measured by the ambition of commitments negotiated between governments. However, the landmark agreements forged at COPs in Kyoto, Paris and Glasgow were strengthened by a groundswell of private sector support.

Informally referred to as the “COP of implementation,” success at COP31 in Antalya will depend on the ability of the private sector to turn climate commitments into investment opportunities, infrastructure delivery, industrial transformation and business decisions that can be implemented at scale.

Recognising this challenge, COP31 has put the Action Agenda at the centre of the COP of implementation.

Its priorities, including renewable-powered electrification, green industrial development and accelerated investment in climate solutions, all depend on an active partnership between government and industry.

Perhaps the clearest example where global policy drives implementation via private sector action is through global climate reporting efforts, where Australia very much stands at the front of the curve.

New Zealand and Australia both drew on the Paris…

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