Global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise despite mitigation efforts. We investigate how three archetypes of corporate responses to climate change, namely compromising, avoidance, and manipulation, relate to actual emissions reduction. We perform panel data regression analysis using 5,431 firm year observations from S&P500 companies between 2011 to 2021. We also look at the moderating effect of reputational risk. Our findings show that compromising is associated with reduction in emissions over time. We also show that manipulating organizations change their behavior when facing high reputational risk. The rest of the findings are inconsistent. We contribute to the investigation of the organizational action – climate change nexus. Further, we point to policy makers and social movement organizations workable leverage points for GHG emissions reduction.