G7 steps towards making companies disclose climate risks

The wealthy G7 countries on Saturday moved closer to mandatory disclose of companies' climate impact despite a lack of global agreement and doubts from some NGOs.

"We support moving towards mandatory climate-related financial disclosures," their finance ministers said in a statement released after two days of meetings, adding that this would "provide consistent and decision-useful information for market participants".

The idea backed by the UK, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan would make it mandatory for all major companies to come clean on, for example, their carbon dioxide emissions -- a crucial aspect of the transition towards cleaner energy.

Such regulations would help companies assess the financial impact of the climate crisis and make necessary changes as their countries set ambitious targets such as becoming carbon neutral by 2050.

It would also help investors who offer financing to large groups and take an ever closer interest in the impact of the climate on businesses, both in terms of performance and reputation.

The G7 says it is following the recommendations of the taskforce on climate-related financial disclosures (TCFD), put in place in 2017 with members from across the G20.

The finance ministers went even further by hailing the creation of a taskforce on nature-related financial disclosures, which covers not only the climate but also nature and biodiversity.

The challenge is that every country takes responsibility and imposes measures on its own companies and so there has to be agreement on accounting rules.

Britain already plans to force companies to go public on their environmental impact from 2025 -- with the government claiming this makes it the most progressive country in the G20.

Nevertheless, disclosing such information will not be mandatory at first, and businesses in the country are only required to either publish the data or to explain why they are not doing so.

- ' Proper disclosure' -

The governor of the Bank of France, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, said in an interview with The Financial Times on Wednesday that a global agreement could emerge from the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow in November.

"Proper disclosure should become mandatory -- I would expect this as a first step," Villeroy told the newspaper.

"Nobody expected six months ago for us to go as quickly as we did and to say perhaps we could have a positive conclusion on mandatory disclosure at the COP26."

Investors are also pushing G7 countries to do more, such as Britain's IA (Investment Association), which is urging financial regulators to make the publication of climate risks mandatory.

"Ensuring high-quality and comparable data on the impact of climate change lies at the heart of this," said Chris Cummings, CEO of the IA.

For their part, NGOs warn that the latest measure is no guarantee that the business world will play its part in energy transition.

"Disclosures should have been mandatory a long time ago, but at this stage of the climate and ecological crisis, calling for better data is a dangerous distraction," said David Barmes, an economist at Positive Money.

"Markets will not save the day," he said, adding that in his view the G7 governments should mainly work with central banks and regulators to "actively shift finance out of fossil fuels and other environmentally harmful activities."

NGOs said Wednesday in a report that G7 countries had missed a chance to become greener during the pandemic by massively subsidising polluting sectors such as air travel, despite their climate commitments.

Merkel calls for 'concrete measures' from climate summit
Berlin (AFP) June 5, 2021 - Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday she hoped for "concrete measures" at the global summit on climate change due to take place in the Scottish city of Glasgow in November.

"The Paris agreement shows us the way to limit global warming to a tolerable level," Merkel said in her video message ahead of a preparatory conference for the summit in Bonn.

The Glasgow talks, must "absolutely give new impetus to concrete measures", she added.

The 26th edition of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties -- COP26 -- will be the biggest climate summit since the 2015 Paris negotiation.

"Up to a million species are threatened with extinction, many of them already in the coming decades," said Merkel. "We urgently need to stop this development."

She welcomed recent developments such as the decision of the European Union to ban single-use plastics such as straws and cotton buds from July.

"Doing without them will be easy and will greatly ease our environment," she said.

"In Europe, we have already come a long way," she added, citing the commitment of EU member states to be climate-neutral -- an economy with net-zero climate emissions -- by 2050.

Germany has set more ambitious targets, she pointed out.

COP26 will gather climate negotiators from 196 countries and the European Union, along with businesses, experts and world leaders in Glasgow between November 1-12.

Host nation Britain, which was forced to delay the summit last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, says it wants to host a physical summit.

Powell, Lagarde split over central bank role in climate policy
Paris (AFP) June 4, 2021
US Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell said Friday it was not the central bank's role to set climate policy, a stance rejected by European counterpart Christine Lagarde who warned that "the planet is burning". "We are not and we do not seek to be climate policy makers as such. We have a very specific mandate and precious independence," Powell told a videoconference hosted by the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and France's central bank. "We should avoid trying to fill in public policy wh ... read more