MGMT8420 Summer 2019: The Paris Agreement's Impact on Global Business

This report analyzes the impact of climate change on businesses, focusing on the Paris Agreement and its implications. It begins by outlining how climate change affects business operations, including shifts in demand and increased costs associated with technological upgrades to reduce emissions. The report then delves into the history of the Paris Agreement, its goals to limit global temperature rise, and the role of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) by participating countries. The report also examines the UAE's contributions to the agreement and explores the potential for sustainable development beyond the oil economy. The report concludes by evaluating the effectiveness of the Paris Agreement and proposing that local governments must implement changes from the grassroots level to achieve real and lasting change towards solving the climate crisis. References from academic journals are also included.

Global Sustainable Management

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How has climate change impacted business?
There are several ways in which the climate change is impacting business. Business is a part of
our society and changing climate will also result in changing business scenario. The climate
change is going to have a great effect on the demand of the products thus resulting in shift in
demand. For example with increasing global warming the demand for heaters may decline
whereas that of AC is rising like never before.
Secondly, there is increased cost of upgrading the technologies that is going to be modifying the
emission in the environment. Though this is a desirable step that must be taken by the
organization and the management, we cannot deny the fact that it does bring in a major change in
the operational cost of the corporate world (Osman & Sgouridis 2018).
What is the history of The Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement was signed in the year 2016 with the efforts of United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The main of the agreement was to research and put
an upper limit on the greenhouse gases emission. Till March 2019, it was seen that 195 countries
have signed the convention and a total of 185 nations have agreed to become a party to it.
After signing the convention the countries will have to contribute in keeping the global average
temperature below 2 Degree Celsius above pre-industrial level. This also included limiting the
increase to 1.5 degree Celsius
The participant countries will be will have to generate reports on the development of mitigation
methods to prevent climate change and submit so that the steps could be taken (Nisbet et al 2019).
What is the history of The Paris Agreement?
With The Paris Agreement there has been considerable impact seen on the business. One thing
has to be taken into consideration here is that the agreement is quite recent and there are many
developments that are yet to take place here.
In the primary stage we can see that business go on to play a vital role in a fight against the
climate change that has been initiated by The Paris Agreement. In this, the companies have
started to use solar panels and there is use of low carbon technologies. Based on the research and
development methods outlined by the Agreement there is going to be no hindrance on the
product development of the companies and the production process will also go on with the same
pace but infused with technologies that are efficient (Fee 2019).

Although one can argue that the guidelines for the business operation is common but there is
huge difference between the scale of operations of large corporations, medium sized and small
size.
What is Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)?
When we talk about The Paris Agreement there is no way that we cannot talk about Nationally
Determined Contributions. By this all the countries who agree to The Agreement come to a
common conclusion that there shall be reduction of national emission and also make an effort to
adapt to the changes that are seen in the climate of the world which is getting distorted at an
alarming rate (Holden et al 2018).
The participant countries are going to prepare, communicate as well as maintain nationally
determined contributions which the nation is going to achieve through the efforts that were brief
provided to each one of them in The Paris Agreement. The climate actions of each of the nation
shall be communicated to The Paris Agreement post 2020 which will be known as NDCs.
United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates has signed The Paris Agreement and is successfully contributing to the
progress of the agreement by bringing in changes in the basic functioning of companies within
the economy (Ennis, 2018).
The Paris Agreement was very well taken in UAE as the country had already seen the idea of
sustainable development by Late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.
The steps that UAE has taken is that it is planning to develop its economy which is not limited to
oil as the exploitation of oil and its dredging and drilling has significant impact on the climatic
changes. The economy thrives to go beyond the oil economy in this endeavor of reducing gas
emission.
There is more stress given on geothermal energy, wind energy and also solar energy.
Based on your research, what do you believe will be the best way to
achieve real and lasting change towards solving the climate crisis?
Yes, based on the research and evidences it can be believed that The Paris Agreement has been
formed by considerably working on the important points that will help in fighting back the
climate change at the same time it will not prevent the countries from continuing its business
operations (Arantegui & Jäger-Waldau 2018).
Yet, one can say that it is a big effort but it is not enough as there are many micro firms that are
not much bothered about the climatic changes and operate locally with no department that is

going to guide them about the climatic changes and about bringing a change in the operations.
The business practice that these micro scale businesses are having in action harm the
environment a great deal but they are not being educated as they do not have the means to
participate in international agreements. It is the duty of the local government to make sure that
the changes are introduced at lower levels and work is being carried on from the grassroots level.
Hence, it can be concluded that The Paris Agreement is not enough and the work has to go much
deeper.

References
Arantegui, R. L., & Jäger-Waldau, A. (2018). Photovoltaics and wind status in the European Union after
the Paris Agreement. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 81, 2460-2471.
Ennis, C. A. (2018). Reading entrepreneurial power in small Gulf states: Qatar and the UAE. International
Journal, 73(4), 573-595.
Fee, E. (2019). Implementing the Paris Climate Agreement: Risks and Opportunities for Sustainable Land
Use. In International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy 2018 (pp. 249-270). Springer, Cham.
Holden, P. B., Edwards, N. R., Ridgwell, A., Wilkinson, R. D., Fraedrich, K., Lunkeit, F., ... & Knobloch, F.
(2018). Climate–carbon cycle uncertainties and the Paris Agreement. Nature Climate
Change, 8(7), 609.
Nisbet, E. G., Manning, M. R., Dlugokencky, E. J., Fisher, R. E., Lowry, D., Michel, S. E., ... & Brownlow,
R. (2019). Very Strong Atmospheric Methane Growth in the 4 Years 2014–2017: Implications for
the Paris Agreement. Global Biogeochemical Cycles.
Osman, O., & Sgouridis, S. (2018, February). Optimizing the production of ammonia as an energy carrier
in the UAE. In 2018 5th International Conference on Renewable Energy: Generation and
Applications (ICREGA) (pp. 277-280). IEEE.