In June 2020, Ceres released Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A Call to Action for U.S. Financial Regulators. It laid out how climate change threatens the stability of financial markets and the overall economy, and how and why U.S. financial regulators must address this systemic risk as part of their existing responsibilities.
U.S. financial regulators have a critical role to play in bolstering our economy, weakened from a global pandemic and threatened by future climate shocks. Early progress from financial regulators to acknowledge the systemic financial risks of climate change. Despite these advances, most U.S. federal and state financial regulators have yet to act on the climate crisis and lag far behind their global counterparts and what the science demands.
This report lays out the steps that U.S. financial regulators should take now to address climate change consistent with their mandates and seize the vast opportunity of a sweeping economic transformation that can stabilize our climate while reducing long-standing social and economic inequalities. This report further recognises how a lack of urgency is playing out in the face of mounting climate change risks and a changing investment landscape.