In one of its most anticipated rules, the SEC last month adopted a requirement for companies to disclose climate-related risks, completing a process that began two years ago with the release of the agency’s proposed climate disclosure rule. While the final rule is more narrow than initially proposed, it requires publicly traded companies to disclose […]
Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway is required reading for investors of all kinds, both for its investment insights and Buffett’s folksy wisdom on many subjects. In his wide-ranging letters, there’s one topic that’s seldom mentioned – climate change. That is until this year, when Buffett warned that wildfire-related losses at […]
Is a new day dawning at Exxon? Exxon shareholders elected two directors backed by an activist shareholder who called for changes in the oil giant’s response to climate change. It’s the first proxy campaign at a major US company where directors were the target and climate change was the issue. Anne Simpson of the California […]
Sometimes the most important news gets the least attention. Yesterday, to little fanfare, IHSMarkit, a financial data company, announced it would introduce a global registry for carbon credits using distributed ledger technology. It would link various registries around the world and provide a single data set for all projects and credits. Why is this so […]
Hardly a day goes by without major news about climate risk and how companies are responding to it. Amid this onslaught it can be hard to spot what’s truly significant. In just the past week, a group of investors sounded the alarm about the financial risks of climate change, Microsoft’s billion-dollar climate innovation fund joined […]
More US companies are preparing to disclose their climate-related financial risks, but they face challenges to measure these risks and integrate them in their financial reporting. These were among the findings of a new report that explores the extent to which US companies have adopted the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures […]
What US regulators think about the risks of climate change is a lingering puzzle. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell recently offered his perspective in a brief letter, his first public comments on the matter. It was a gem of misdirection and avoidance. The first thing that is notable about Mr. Powell’s letter is how it strains […]
Shares in Pacific Gas & Electric took a beating this week as investors reacted to its potential financial exposure to wildfires in California. It is risk the company has openly identified, but investors seemed caught by surprise. The episode could mark the end of investor complacency about climate risk. Earlier this week, the big […]
It’s been a year since the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) released its recommendations. Backed by the G20 finance ministers and chaired by Michael Bloomberg, the TCFD offered concrete guidance for public companies on how to report risks and opportunities arising from climate change. The TCFD left no doubt that boards have an […]
Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon are at it again. The pair joined forces today on a WSJ op-ed to call for an end to earnings guidance. Is this really the best advice they have to offer given the issues that dominate boardrooms today?