Elizabeth Warren Bill Would Mandate Companies Disclose Climate Risks

“Climate change is a real and present danger,” the Massachusetts lawmaker said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday introduced legislation that would require public companies to disclose risks to their business posed by climate change.

The Climate Risk Disclosure Act would impose sweeping rules mandating that publicly traded companies disclose direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions, the value of all fossil-fuel related assets, and risk-management strategies to deal with a warming world.  Companies also would have to tell investors how their valuation would change under worst-case and best-case scenarios to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

“Climate change is a real and present danger ― and it will have an enormous effect on the value of company assets,” Warren said in a statement on Friday, noting that the phenomenon can be “an economic opportunity if we act boldly and decisively.”

“But if we don’t,” she continued, “we will see a global catastrophe that will put the 2008 crisis to shame.”

The bill has the support of several environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Greenpeace USA.

Former Vice President Al Gore, who has long warned of a coming “carbon asset bubble” comparable to the subprime mortgage crisis, said the legislation would help the country shift toward renewable energy and demonstrate the financial toll of runaway climate change.

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