Companies need to come clean about climate change risk, Mark Carney says
TORONTO — Only about one-third of the world’s 1,000 largest companies provide effective disclosure of the risks they face due to climate change, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said Friday.
Lack of full disclosure, Carney said, makes it difficult for investors, creditors and regulators to assess who is on top of the increasingly critical issue.
“What is your strategy for managing climate-related risk?” he said. “Longer-term strategies are going to be much more important for evaluation.”
At the same time, he said, the transition to an environmentally sustainable future in the coming decades provides an annual opportunity worth trillions of dollars for companies and financiers. One example he cited is the development of a green bond market in China that current estimates suggest will be worth US$500 billion a year. It’s a market Beijing is keen to open up, he said.