Climate change

Firms are coming under increasing pressure to say more about global warming

EARLIER this year an outfit called the Carbon Disclosure Project sent letters to 2,400 big firms around the world, asking them what they were doing about climate change and how big their emissions of greenhouse gases were. The inquiry presumably carried some weight, since it was signed by 315 institutional investors, with roughly $40 trillion at their disposal. The resulting report, the fifth of its kind, which will be published on September 24th, suggests that ever more firms are taking climate change seriously, and a growing number are trying to measure emissions. “The gap between climate concern and action continues to narrow,” it concludes.
But not everyone is happy with the pace of change. On September 18th a group of investors and NGOs petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission, America's stockmarket regulator, to clarify whether firms had an obligation under existing rules to disclose how climate change might affect them. The petitioners, who include officials from 11 American state governments, argue that firms should be telling investors more because both global warming, and regulations designed to curb it, could have a “material” (ie, big) impact on profits.
Mario Cuomo, New York's attorney-general, agrees. Two days earlier he began an investigation of five American energy firms he suspects of withholding information from shareholders about the risks associated with plans to build carbon-intensive coal-fired power plants, despite the likelihood of emissions curbs. Activists have also been asking companies how they will cope with climate change: 43 resolutions were introduced to the shareholders' meetings of American firms this year, according to the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a coalition of green investors. A motion calling for Exxon Mobil, an American oil giant, to set targets for emissions cuts, won the approval of 31% of shareholders. Faced with a similar proposal, managers at ConocoPhillips, another oil firm, agreed to set targets and to back a law to limit America's emissions. You could call it a change in the weather.