Green Wombat

Investors controlling some $4 trillion in assets and their corporate
allies this week launched a campaign to get the U.S. Congress to pass
global warming legislation that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions
60 to 90 percent by 2050. Led by Ceres,
a Boston-based alliance of investors and environmentalists, the group
also called for the Securities and Exchange Commission to require
public companies to disclose climate change risks in their financial
reports. So-called green reporting has long been backed by
environmentalists but now mainstream corporations like aluminum maker
Alcoa (AA), oil giant BP (BP), Merrill Lynch (MER), utility PG&E
(PCG) and Sun Microsystem (SUNW) are backing such efforts along with
CalPERS, the world’s largest pension fund. "We are hopeful that growing
mainstream investor and corporate demand for SEC action will have an
impact," Chris Fox, Ceres’s director of investor programs, told Green
Wombat. "This is not just socially responsible investors asking for
this but mainstream fiduciaries asking for guidance."

The investors and companies backing the coalition’s Climate Call to Action
want the SEC to clarify just what public companies must disclose about
the risks and opportunities presented by global warming. Ceres is
pushing for the SEC to modify reporting regulations to require
corporations to disclose in their annual reports their current and
historical greenhouse gas emissions; the physical risk climate change
poses to their operations; the regulatory risk if greenhouse gas limits
are imposed; and their strategy for managing climate change risks. (A
growing list of companies have adopted "sustainability reporting" in
recent years, including Bank of America (BAC), General Motors (GM) and
Green Wombat’s employer, Time Warner (TWX).) Fox says Ceres is
continuing to meet with SEC officials about climate change disclosure
but the agency has remained non-committal. "We think protecting
American’s property and investments from climate risk is a winning
issue," he says.