climate risk disclose defraud
this is legit vs BS risk asses
1/20
SEE SEC
SEE ESG?
see mkt based solitions: recall montreal protocol bush reagan success half time and cost; Romneycare--> Obamacare
invisible hand of miracle free mkt only works if ppl have access to accurate info; ratings agencies do the analysis
but post trump earth2 we no longer believe in experts/facts
{{{== note ccr 1st amend bs
desmog 4 24
fossil fuel interest groups have mobilized quickly to oppose a new rule issued by the Biden administration designed to speed up America’s transition to hybrid and electric vehicles.
The rule, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized on March 20, limits emissions from tailpipes on new cars, starting in 2027.
Well before the EPA finalized the new standard, powerful corporate lobbies like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) had already promised to spend at least a million dollars campaigning against the rule by falsely portraying it as a “ban” on new cars. The group’s
warn viewers that their freedoms and choices “will soon be taking a back seat to big government.”
The EPA predicts that the change would result in around two-thirds of new vehicle sales being hybrid or electric by 2032 — up from around eight percent today.
Beyond stopping more than 7 billion tons of carbon pollution, the agency predicts that the rule could save drivers more than $60 billion in fuel and maintenance costs, according to an EPA fact sheet that accompanied the final rule. The pollution reduction benefits would particularly benefit Black and brown communities because they are disproportionately likely to suffer from air pollution.
“These strongest-ever pollution standards for cars solidify America’s leadership in building a clean transportation future and creating good-paying American jobs,” EPA administrator Michael S. Regan said in a statement.
Compared to the EPA’s initial proposal, the final rule was scaled back to give car manufacturers more time to comply, but the New York Times still described the new standard as “one of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history.”
The heads of AFPM and the American Petroleum Institute (API) — the leading trade group for the oil and gas industry — declared in a joint statement that the rule “will unequivocally eliminate most new gas cars and traditional hybrids from the U.S. market in less than a decade.”
In February, AFPM had already begun portraying the rule as a “car ban” and announced a “seven-figure issue campaign” featuring TV and digital ads, as well as billboards and text messages. Some of the efforts target electoral swing states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The group also launched a website that warns readers, in all caps, to “keep the government’s hands off our cars!”
Despite the industry’s attempt to misleadingly brand the new standard, “this is not a ban of internal combustion engines,” Margaret Wooldridge, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, said in a statement.
Last year, AFPM spent nearly $7 million lobbying the federal government — more than any year in its history — according to OpenSecrets.
The top two bills the group reported lobbying for are designed to prevent the EPA from finalizing or enforcing vehicle emissions standards. Both bills passed the House last year. (Chevron, API, Koch Industries, and Marathon Petroleum are among the other industry groups and companies that lobbied for these bills last year.)
In addition to lobbying Congress and running million-dollar public influence campaigns, corporate trade groups have increasingly used lawsuits and the threat of costly, time-consuming litigation to stop or delay climate-related regulations.
Earlier this month, for instance, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalized a long-delayed rule that requires public companies to disclose some of their emissions and climate risks that could impact their businesses. While the published rule was substantially weaker than what the SEC originally proposed, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was among a handful of conservative interest groups that immediately challenged the measure in court.
Another recent EPA rule targeting methane emissions also met with opposition from Republican officials and oil and gas interests, according to Politico.
And on March 6, barely a month after the EPA finalized a separate rule limiting soot pollution, API, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Chamber were among eight trade groups that sued the agency in the D.C. Circuit court.
‘Prepared to challenge it in court’
In a blog post, AFPM claims that the EPA “does not have authority to overhaul the U.S. economy or transportation system or compel — directly or otherwise — the use of EVs to address vehicle emissions.”
Similar objections to the authority of federal agencies to issue regulations have found a receptive audience among the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.
If the EPA doesn’t undo the tailpipe emissions rule, “our organizations are certainly prepared to challenge it in court,” the AFPM and API CEOs said in the joint statement that followed the announcement.
In attacking the rule, corporate interest groups like AFPM are following a well-trod path of fighting new climate regulations on every playing field they can find.
During the Trump administration, AFPM helped lead a successful effort to weaken previous EPA fuel efficiency standards. The group helped marshal Republican governors to advocate for the rollback, while also supporting Energy4US, a front group that encouraged Americans to flood the EPA with public comments, as DeSmog previously reported.
“One of the big advantages that oil industry lobbyists like AFPM have is money, and AFPM certainly isn’t afraid to use it,” Jesse Coleman, a senior researcher at the investigative outlet Documented, told DeSmog in an email.
“Million dollar ad campaigns are an unfortunately common way for groups like AFPM to pressure legislators and regulators by raising the political temperature on an issue. Litigation slows things further, leading to years of delays in implementation.”
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REF DESMOG
March 21 (Reuters) - A U.S. judicial panel on Thursday consolidated at least nine lawsuits challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rules requiring public companies to report climate-related risks in a venue favored by Republican-led states and a business group.
The St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was chosen randomly via a lottery and will consider the legal challenges to the landmark rule, which aims to standardize public company disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks and how they are preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The court, which has 10 Republican-appointed active judges and one appointed by a Democratic president, was the venue where nine Republican-led states including Iowa, Montana and North Dakota and the business lobbying group American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce filed their challenge.
Representatives for the Republican-led states and industry challengers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The SEC declined to comment.
First proposed in 2022, the rules are part of Democratic President Joe Biden’s efforts to leverage federal agency rulemaking to address climate change threats.
They were approved by the SEC on March 6, and the first lawsuit seeking to block them was filed later that day.
The consolidated lawsuits include challenges filed by at least 25 Republican-led states, energy industry companies and business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, seeking to overturn the rules.
They have argued, among other things, that the disclosure requirements amount to back-door environmental regulations that go beyond the SEC’s legal authority.
Challengers on the other side of the issue like the environmental organization the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defense Council have meanwhile said the rules do not go far enough to protect investors, and arbitrarily stripped the final version of stronger reporting requirement rules.
Representatives for the environmental groups said they look forward to arguing before the court.
The conservative-dominated 5th Circuit, the court where Texas and energy companies filed their challenges, temporarily paused the rules from going into effect on Friday.
The SEC is expected to ask the 8th Circuit to revisit that ruling. It had told the 5th Circuit a pause was unnecessary, since the rules have extended compliance deadlines that do not require disclosures before March 2026.}:
The agency has also said the rules "fit comfortably within" its authority to require disclosure of information important to investors, and that they would provide "consistent, comparable and reliable information" about climate risks.
The nine lawsuits were filed in six appeals courts. The 8th Circuit had previously set a deadline for the challengers who sued in that court to file their opening brief in May.
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REF
March 6 (Reuters) - Ten Republican-led states have sued to challenge new federal rules that require U.S.-listed companies to report climate-related risks, a spokesperson for the West Virginia Attorney General's Office said on Wednesday, hours after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the rules.
The states, which also include Georgia, Alabama and Alaska, filed the petition at the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the spokesperson. The rules aim to standardize climate-related company disclosures about greenhouse gas emissions, weather-related risks and how they are preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The Sierra Club environmental group, meanwhile, said it was considering suing the SEC because it believed the new rules did not go far enough.
The SEC, Wall Street’s top regulator, said the information would give investors reliable information about financial risks companies face related to climate change.
An SEC spokesperson said in a statement that the agency crafts rules that are consistent with its legal authority, and that it will "vigorously defend" the climate disclosure rules in court.
First proposed in 2022, the rules are part of Democratic President Joe Biden’s efforts to leverage federal agency rulemaking to address climate change threats. Similar disclosure requirements have been adopted in Europe and in California.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Wednesday said during a press conference that the Biden administration is trying to act as a "puppeteer" using public companies to drive forward its climate agenda.
Republican-led states had been signaling their intent to challenge the rules for years, arguing in public comments in 2022 that they amount to back-door environmental regulations that go beyond the SEC’s legal authority.
They claimed then the rules would require companies to create, gather and disclose a “crushing” amount of material that goes well beyond the finance-based disclosures that investors need.
Anticipating legal challenges, the Biden administration had dropped more ambitious elements of the rules requiring companies to disclose “Scope 3” emissions, indirect emissions by suppliers or customers.
For many businesses, Scope 3 emissions account for 70% of their carbon footprint, according to the consulting firm Deloitte.
The final SEC rules also allow larger companies to determine whether emissions from their own operations and the power they purchase constitute information investors need to make decisions.
Morrisey said that despite changes to the proposed rule, the finalized rule was still defective and unconstitutional.
The Sierra Club, one of the largest environmental advocacy groups in the U.S., said in a statement it was considering filing a lawsuit to challenge the SEC's decision to remove the more robust reporting requirements. The group said it would also defend the SEC's legal authority to issue and implement the rules.
In California state court, litigation has been already been filed by business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenging that state’s climate disclosure laws, which include Scope 3 emissions disclosure requirements. That lawsuit filed in January said the state’s laws will impose “massive” costs on businesses and violate free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution by compelling the disclosures.
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june 2022
https://www.vox.com/23058987/sec-climate-finance-disclosure
as drought spreads and sea levels rise, the economic impacts of climate change will run in the trillions of dollars. The insurance firm Swiss Re projects climate disasters would cost the world as much as $23 trillion by 2050, bigger than the impact from the pandemic and the Great Recession of 2009 combined.
It’s reasonable business planning to account for all this foreseeable risk — just like planning for cyberattacks or business disruptions from a pandemic. Last year, for instance, the US had to spend $145 billion dealing with floods, fires, and other climate-related disasters.
Yet somehow, climate change has fallen through the cracks of US financial regulation. Publicly traded companies are required to disclose information about “material” risks that affect their company regardless of their cause, from sanctions to supply chain chaos. But there are no uniform standards for disclosing how much fossil fuel pollution they generate or the impact that climate change could have on their future growth. Instead, companies have been left free to inflate their environmental progress, all with little scrutiny from the public.
This kind of information is, in theory, essential to a functioning free market, so investors can make decisions based on complete information. But fossil fuel interests, conservative ideologues, and corporate trade groups are striving to keep shareholders in the dark on climate risks.
The Biden administration is trying to make companies more publicly accountable for the risk of the climate crisis. A linchpin of Biden’s plan is a draft rule the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed in March. Over 500 pages, the SEC rule proposes that publicly traded companies disclose how climate change affects their business outlook and identify a board member or board committee to focus on climate-related risks.
Once the rule is finalized, companies will have to disclose how their operations are affected by extreme weather events and the impact of climate change on the short- and medium-term business outlook. They’ll also have to report the emissions both from their company’s operations and from how their products are used. This is particularly bad news for fossil fuel companies with business models predicated on selling pollution. Until this rule, they haven’t had to fully account for the environmental impact from things like selling gas that’s burned by consumers’ cars.
This is a rule, in other words, that helps the free market act like the free market, giving investors exactly the information they need to make the decisions,” Emory University business law expert George Georgiev said.
As the draft rule’s comment period came to a close, it’s clear any regulation on climate change faces serious headwinds. The loudest protests have come from right-wing groups and corporate-aligned nonprofits that have flooded the public comments with previews of the argument they’ll take to courts.
Plenty of businesses in the financial sector stand to benefit from this rule, like the investing giant BlackRock, which has pledged to align its assets with climate goals. But some could be hurt. The companies that benefit from greenwashing their climate commitments are doing everything they can to protect the chaotic status quo.
Financial transparency on climate change is hardly a radical idea
The SEC has required and standardized public company disclosures since 1933. In recent decades, the SEC has issued nonbinding guidance on how publicly traded companies should consider Covid-19 disruptions, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even a feared “Y2K” meltdown at the turn of the 21st century, so the companies would meet their fiduciary duty.
But the SEC has been painfully slow on climate change. Right now, businesses disclose the risks and costs of their business on the climate on a voluntary, patchy basis with no clear standardization.
A 2020 Government Accountability Office surveyed 32 midsize and large publicly traded companies and found little consistency. Airlines, for example, used years anywhere between 1990 and 2017 as the baseline for calculating their climate footprint. Water companies have used completely different measurements for reporting water extraction. Some companies would just report carbon emissions, while others would report total greenhouse gas emissions (including sources like methane).
The proposed SEC rule cites other evidence of companies not paying attention to this risk, like an internal survey of climate-related keywords in companies’ 10-Ks between June 2019 and December 2020. They found only 31 percent mentioned climate change at all.
This information is not just to benefit climate change efforts; it is also useful to investors. It makes clearer, for instance, that a retail company’s warehouses might be threatened by increased flooding, that an airline company might have to ground more flights because of rising heat waves, or that a bank’s backing of major fossil fuel expansion has the strong chance of backfiring in a world that transitions to renewables. Without any regulation and standardization, companies will just continue to try to outshine one another on their environmental and social commitments without hard data to back it. This mismatch will become an existential risk to financial instability if, for example, extreme weather pummels a business that did not prepare accordingly.
Environmental activists have pushed for more from companies by proposing shareholder resolutions at annual meetings that ask for more transparency, but have met with mixed success in shareholder votes that don’t bind the company to taking action.
In this regulatory vacuum, voluntary global affiliations have cropped up, including the Net Zero Assets Managers Initiative, representing some $43 trillion in assets, and Climate Action 100+, representing more than $60 trillion. Another of these groups is run out of the Financial Stability Board as a Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a voluntary system that has grown to more than 3,000 companies. The task force’s recommendations tell companies to consider the short-, medium-, and long-term climate impacts, emissions that result from investment decisions, and their operations’ pollution, and account for the changing climate’s consequences for the business. The hundreds of companies that voluntarily comply with these standards aren’t necessarily green or good for the environment, but it’s an extra gold star for their sustainability transparency.
Eight countries, including the UK, have passed laws that will mirror the TFCD’s recommendations, but the US would remain an outlier without the SEC rule. “Investors put their money where they think there’s a good opportunity and good information,” said Steven Rothstein, managing director of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets. “If we don’t have good information, we run the risk of falling behind internationally.”
The SEC’s rule is basically the US playing catch-up, based on standards the mainstream corporate community aligned with TFCD have already backed.
Initially, companies will have to spend extra to comply with the rule — up to $530,000 a year for larger companies by the SEC’s estimate, but it will vary depending on how much companies are doing already on climate disclosure. Typically, the costs of rules shrink over time. Otherwise, the rule itself is quite modest. The SEC is “not saying you should or shouldn’t invest in climate products,” Rothstein said. “They’re just saying, tell investors what you’re doing and do it in a consistent way.”
Environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers argue the SEC could be doing even more. The SEC does not change how companies disclose climate-related activities like PR campaigns and political influence, the kind of activities that tend to be outsourced to nonprofits that shield their activities from the public. In March, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a “failure of nerve that shies away from a perfectly legal, necessary response to the climate danger we face” because political efforts remain “the single most material disclosures a company could make to achieve climate safety.”
Right-wing groups claim financial transparency is an attack on free speech
Unsurprisingly, the SEC is facing immense pressure to withdraw this rule because of the same shadowy political spending that companies don’t have to disclose in the first place. Groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Americans for Prosperity, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute have flooded the SEC with comments that argue company free speech would be violated.
Trade groups and right-wing think tanks have argued that requiring companies to report these emissions is akin to violating their First Amendment rights of free speech, pointing to a court case that ruled a regulation requiring the disclosure of conflict-zone minerals would amount to :{“:(style="background-color:#ff9900;"):}::{compelled speech”:(style="background-color:#ff6600;"):}: and violated the companies’ rights.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby, has argued the rule “could raise serious First Amendment issues under recent applying strict scrutiny to content-based laws compelling speech.”
The argument has found purchase with conservative lawmakers, like West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey,who picked up the argument in his 2021 letter to Treasury last year. In Congress, 19 Republican senators argued in their submitted comments that the rule is “not within the SEC’s mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.” Another 40 Republican representatives wrote that the rule will act to “undermine and shame public companies,” while Republican attorneys general describes the rule as a “total reordering of [the SEC’s] present disclosure regime.”
The attack on regulation under the guise of First Amendment rights has become more familiar in recent years. “Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been steadily giving corporations more and more leeway, more and more rights,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a corporate law expert who has published several books on corporate speech.
The court also opened the door to more of these lawsuits, striking down a California law that required nonprofits to disclose their donors, siding with the Americans for Prosperity Foundation’s argument against disclosing their donors and providing IRS 990 forms to the state. Other legal challenges to campaign finance laws and unions have used the First Amendment.
Legal experts supportive of the SEC rule consider the argument a long shot in courts. “I think that argument is really far-fetched,” Emory’s Georgiev said.
But it’s still worrisome. If it succeeds, whether in courts or as a scare tactic to get the SEC to backtrack, it sets a dangerous precedent for the financial system at large. “If this climate rule is violating the First Amendment, it’s been all nine decades [the SEC has been] violating the First Amendment,” Georgiev said. “They will definitely try it out in courts. At the end of the day, a lot of far-fetched arguments succeed in courts.”
maine tisch timeline:
2018 (October)
Exxon Mobil announces commitment of $1 million to promote a carbon tax
The Wall Street Journal reports that the company, “once a powerful skeptic of global warming,
will now be among the first oil companies to put money into the fight to make climate change a
political priority in Washington. The U.S.’s largest energy producer will commit $1 million
over two years to promote a national tax on carbon as a way to address the environmental issue.
The funding will back an initiative designed to appeal to the Republicans who now control
Washington, and may open the door for Exxon’s peers in the oil industry to follow.”*
*Timothy Puko and Bradley Olson, “Exxon Puts Up $1 Million to Promote Carbon Tax,” Wall Street Journal, October 9, 2018,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-puts-up-1-million-to-campaign-for-a-carbon-tax-1539079200
2018 (October)
New York sues Exxon Mobil on accounting for climate change
New York Acting Attorney General Barbara Underwood concludes a three year investigation
into Exxon’s accounting practices related to climate change by filing a civil suit alleging that
the company engaged in a “longstanding fraudulent scheme” to deceive investors, analysts and
underwriters “concerning the company’s management of the risks posed to its business by
climate change regulation.” The New York Times observes that “not only does [the suit] pose a
financial threat to Exxon that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars or more, but it
could also strike a blow to the reputation of a company that has worked to rehabilitate its image,
framing itself as a leader on global warming.” Exxon Mobil spokesman Scott Silvestri, says that
the New York attorney general’s “baseless allegations are a product of closed-door lobbying by
special interests, political opportunism and the attorney general’s inability to admit that a three-year
investigation has uncovered no wrongdoing.”*The Editorial Board of the Wall Street
Journal issues a strongly worded criticism: “Ms. Underwood is charging Exxon under New
York’s notorious Martin Act, which doesn’t require evidence of intent to prove fraud in civil
cases. She may be hoping that Exxon agrees to settle and pay a fine so she can declare victory.
Yet in this case there’s not even evidence of fraudulent conduct, much less intent. The only
party guilty of misrepresentation in this lawsuit is the New York AG.”** [see 2015
(November), 2016 (October)]
*John Schwartz, “New York Sues Exxon Mobil, Saying It Deceived Shareholders on Climate Change,” New York Times, October 24,
2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/climate/exxon-lawsuit-climate-change.html
**Editorial Board, “Peak Embarrassment in War on Oil,” Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/peakembarrassment-in-war-on-oil-1540509533
https://www.ecowatch.com/new-zealand-climate-risk-reporting-2647698323.html
New Zealand could be the first country in the world to require its major financial institutions to report on the risks posed by the climate crisis.
This means that about 200 of the country's biggest companies and banks would have to report on the impact that extreme weather events or climate polices will have on their business, Stuff explained.
"Today is another step on the journey this Government is taking towards a low carbon future for Aotearoa New Zealandand a cleaner, safer planet for future generations," said Minister for Climate Change James Shaw Tuesday, Scoop reported.
The move builds on New Zealand's emerging legacy of climate action, such as its historic Zero Carbon Bill that committed the country to honoring the goals of the Paris agreement and achieving zero carbon emissions by 2050.
However, New Zealand's parliament is currently dissolved ahead of the Oct. 17 election, The Guardian reported. In order for it to enter into force, Shaw's party, the Green Party, would have to enter a coalition government after the election and the proposal would then have to pass parliament.
If it passes, every New Zealand bank, building society, credit union, insurer or Crown Financial Institution with more than $1 billion in assets will have to report annually on the risk climate change poses to its business or explain why it cannot, according to Stuff. That report would include what the risks are, how the institution is managing them and how it is working to address the impacts of climate change.
"Many large businesses in New Zealand do not currently have a good understanding of how climate change will impact on what they do," Shaw said. "The changes I am announcing today will bring climate risks and resilience into the heart of financial and business decision making. It will ensure the disclosure of climate risk is clear, comprehensive and mainstream."
Shaw said that Australia, Canada, UK, France, Japan and the European Union were developing some form of climate risk reporting, but New Zealand's plan was more ambitious because it included the whole financial system, according to Scoop. The institutions covered by the policy account for 90 percent of the assets controlled in New Zealand, Stuff reported.
If the proposal passes parliament, the climate reporting would begin in 2023.
Nobel Laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz praised the proposed plan, according to The Guardian.
"Once again, New Zealand is leading the world… It led the world in showing how democratic countries could manage the risks of Covid-19," he said. "And now, New Zealand is leading the way in showing how we can help manage the risk of climate change."
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drilled 320
JPMorgan Hopes to Block Shareholder Climate Risk Resolutions
Activist shareholder resolutions ask JPMorgan to report its exposure to climate risk. But the firm has moved to block them from a vote.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/heres-why-climate-change-has-become-a-lightning-rod-for-business-and-finance-leaders-report/
no lnx
Here’s why climate change has become a ‘lightning rod for business and finance leaders’: report
Written by Alex Henderson January 24, 2020
Countless articles have focused on the environmental and safety aspects of climate change, especially in liberal and progressive publications. But Dino Rabouin and Amy Harder, in an article published by Axios on January 24, discuss and analyze climate change from a business standpoint — explaining that climate change has “suddenly become a lightning rod for business and finance leaders around the world.”
Drawing on data Axios received from the High Lantern Group, Rabouin and Harder report that climate change “generated the highest degree of public pressure on corporations by activists, policymakers and journalists” in 2019 — which was a 77% increase from 2018.
High Lantern’s data, according to Rabouin and Harder, “includes analysis of more than 6 million tweets.” Rob Gluck, managing partner for High Lantern, notes that “the vast majority of relevant public actors” are “using (Twitter) to communicate.”
“In recent months,” Rabouin and Harder observe, “the world’s foremost economic institutions have advocated for policies cutting greenhouse gas emissions. This trend is driven by a confluence of factors, including more extreme weather and greater public pressure.”
Institutions that have been discussing climate change, Rabouin and Harder point out, include “major central banks” as well as theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). In a research paper released on January 20, BIS warned that climate change could cause “potentially extremely financially disruptive events that could be behind the next systemic financial crisis.”
According to BIS, “This complex collective action problem requires coordinating actions among many players, including governments, the private sector, civil society and the international community.”
IMF head Kristalina Georgieva, in a speech last week, asserted that the IMF “ought to begin to build standards for disclosure of climate risks” — and that includes “mandatory disclosure standards.”
Journalist Josh Holland addressed climate change’s financial costs in a September 2019 article for The Nation, stressing that a Green New Deal wouldn’t be nearly as costly as the effects of climate change. Holland noted that in a 2015 report, the Economist Intelligence Unit warned that “the asset management industry — and thus the wider community of investors of all sizes — is facing the prospect of significant losses from the effects of climate change.”
Rabouin and Harder also note that “BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, says it’s making climate change a pillar of its investment strategy, and even Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are calling for a price on carbon emissions.”
The Axios reporters emphasize, however, that “all this rhetoric should be scrutinized carefully and often” because “talking about supporting policies addressing climate change is quite different from actually doing something about it.”
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