Congratulations to Michael Bloomberg, Mark Carney and all other members of the FSB’s Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures and those who participated through input or consultation on today’s publication of their Recommendations Report. Bringing more transparency into financial markets and highlighting financial risks due to climate change has been on financial and political agendas over the last year but common standards and approaches have so far been missing. The privately led FSB Task Force and its report represents a breakthrough in that regard.
Now is the time to move forward on this common ground. Policy-makers and financial institutions should see to sustain this unique forum and provide a mandate for a follow-up. That could be guidelines and best practices in applying these standards. Together with regulators they need to set a roadmap on how to make the FSB TF’s standards mandatory – be it through the current German G20 presidency or the European Commission’s Sustainable Finance Strategy and European Capital Union. Of course there is more to do: When it comes to data and quantifying climate risks we have to acknowledge that a simple CO2 footprint can only be a beginning, not the end. That the Task Force lists the developing of 2°C scenarios is the right way in that regard.
Background
