A global task force chaired by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg is recommending the world's businesses and industries adopt a universal approach for reporting the financial impact of climate change.
The prominent American businessman was assigned the task last December, about the time political leaders from nearly 200 countries including Canada were meeting near Paris to negotiate a United Nations climate accord.
Bloomberg says climate change is not only an environmental problem, but a business one as well.
His 32-member task force — which included the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, insurance companies, banks, and industrial and mining companies — came up with a framework that is designed to inform investors and asset managers.
Its 66-page report, released today, says its recommendations are practical and should be adopted voluntarily by all organizations across jurisdictions and economic sectors.
It recommends, for instance, that organizations routinely disclose a potential range of impacts of climate on its business, how the risks are identified, the way the risks are measured, and how top managers and boards govern the process.
The release of the task force report will begin a 60-day period for public consultations and feedback, until Feb. 12.
The implementation of the Paris climate agreement — which calls for signatory countries to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide in order to limit the rise in the global temperature — has been called into doubt by the U.S. election victory of Donald Trump.
During Trump's campaign, the Republican president-designate said earlier this year that he would "cancel" the climate deal.
More recently, he said in a Fox News television interview that he's "very open-minded" on whether climate change is under way but has serious concerns about how the Obama administration's effort to cut carbon dioxide emissions would undercut U.S. global competitiveness.
In the task force report, Bloomberg — also a Republican who built a business empire before entering politics — says climate change is a problem for business that should be addressed.
"Warming of the planet caused by greenhouse gas emissions poses serious risks to the global economy and will have an impact across many economic sectors," Bloomberg says.
"Widespread adoption of the recommendations will help ensure that climate-related financial issues are routinely considered in business and investment decisions and encourage an effective dialogue between companies and banks, insurers and investors"
Bloomberg was named chair of the task force last December by Mark Carney, a former Bank of Canada governor and current Bank of England governor, in his role as chair of the Financial Stability Board.
Comments
Not sure why you guys publish this CP boilerplate stuff. This is precisely the kind of uncritical writing that conforms to the Hermann/Chomsky propaganda model discussed in their 1988 landmark book "Manufacturing Consent", discussed further in Chomsky's CBC Massey Lectures ("Necessary Illusions") of the same year , and widely popularized in the 1992 film of the same name (Directors: Mark Achbar , Peter Wintonick). It's worth wondering whether or not this line of legitimate criticism and the media's failure to meaningfully respond to it hasn't bred the cynicism and mistrust that now manifests in the widespread assumption that "it's all just fake news".
Just to almost randomly pick out some phrases that simply serve to legitimize guys like Bloomberg and the crazy inordinate power they wield over guys like us...
"...task force...". What is a task force, anyway? Sounds impressive.
"The prominent American businessman..." Does "prominent" just mean rich? Rich and famous? Rich, famous and powerful? Important? "VIP", as we used to say? If there are "prominent" VI(mportant)Ps doesn't it follow that there are VU(nimportant)Ps? Who? The rest of us?
This un-identified Task Force says its findings in its un-named Report "...should be adopted voluntarily by all organizations across jurisdictions and economic sectors." All?! Everywhere?! Forever?! Pretty comprehensive report, I guess.
Should just trust Bloomberg and his task force and its report? Trust CP and its subscriber, our beloved National Observer? Or dig a bit deeper on my own? There is a clue, even if its buried in the very last three words of the article. "Financial Stability Board".
O.K. There's an internet. Google that. Can't take too long.
So it tuns out that this entity, this "Task Force" is a fiction (it has no legal existence) conjured in 2019 by this "Financial Stability Board" (in turn a fiction i.e. no legal existence) conjured by the G20 in 2009 to rise from the ashes of its equally fictional predecessor the "Financial Stability Forum" which was similarly conjured in 1998 by the G7 in 1998 in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis 1997 that almost tanked the world economy, which some of us may remember. This "Forum's" purpose and mandate was to prevent any similar collapse; at which it spectacularly failed (Great Recession, 2008), as most of us will remember. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary According to Wikipedia, Tim Geithner, (the guy disbursed Obama's $700 billion bail out goodies) has described it as "in effect, a fourth pillar" of the architecture of global economic governance... alongside the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.
Why, after all this awful history, any of us (e.g. people... your readership) should grant any credibility to any of them (prominent folk) is something I would be glad to have explained by CP and/or NO.
Took about a 1/2 hour to get a bit of context here. I'd rather have been making muffins while y'all did the Googling. As someone much wiser than I once told me, "If you can't say anything helpful, don't say anything at all." I'd far rather read a smaller amount of material for my $70 bucks subscription fee than have to do all this winnowing of NO's excellent and nourishing wheat from this kind of empty-calorie wire service chaff.
Thanks.
Tony