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Just as the military considers climate change a threat multiplier increasing risks and threats around the world, making its job(s) harder to accomplish with every passing year, so too businesses of all shapes and flavors should view climate change as a ‘threat multiplier’ creating risks that require attention to maintain continued viability. News today about a major US corporation being driven into bankruptcy in no small part due to climate change’s “threat multiplier” effect hopefully will capture attention in boardrooms around the nation and world.

Pacific Gas and Electric, facing billions of dollars in claims over the deadly 2018 Camp Fire, is headed to bankruptcy court.

Just as with so many climate change-related impacts, such as flooding after storms, there is not a single point ‘climate change caused’ statement to be made. 

PG&E isn’t “facing billions of dollars in claims” due solely to climate change but due to the (almost certain) reality that — over years — PG&E underinvested in hardening its assets, maintaining its systems, and developing appropriately urgent response systems to deal with (seemingly) urgent maintenance/repair requirements which became greater liabilities and vulnerabilities with every passing year as climate (wildfire) risks and threats increased.  

In the past century, California has warmed about three degrees … with that warming accelerating in recent decades. Associated with that, the worst wildfire seasons and worst wildfires are overwhelmingly in recent years.

since the 1980s, the size and ferocity of the fires that sweep across the state have trended upward. Fifteen of the 20 largest fires in California history have occurred since 2000.

PG&E’s apparent(ly systematic) negligence combined with climate change to increase risks and led (almost certainly) to many deaths and much destruction. Climate change increased the threat while PG&E’s (seemingly systematic) negligence made California & Californians even more vulnerable to those risks.

In the face of a changing world, of even a changing business environment, businesses must take reasonable action for change or else suffer pain while likley causing pain for others.

In climate action terms, PG&E failed to “adapt” to mounting climate threats, failed to harden its systems (physical, policy, procedures, …) in the face of those threats. And those failures look to have (literally) killed people.

The Camp Fire alone killed at least 86, and may have been triggered by a spark from PG&E’s power lines.

• PG&E’s electrical equipment was blamed for sparking 17 of California’s major wildfires in 2017.

Today, one of the nation’s largest utilities is going into bankruptcy.  

Failure to deal adequately with climate change impacts is at the core of PG&E’s problems.

PG&E is not the first firm to fail in the face of climate challenges and risks. It will not be last. Aggressive moves to #ActOnClimate (both to mitigate (reduce emissions to reduce future risks) and adapt (take measures for greater resiliency to and preparedness for climate risks)) will, however, reduce the number of firms that join PG&E in the ranks of climate change victims.