Tag Archives: Climate Change

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Letters to Regulators: Federal Insurance Office Request for Information on the Insurance Sector and Climate-Related Financial Risks

AFREF sent a letter to the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) on how the agency can coordinate with state insurance regulators and insurers to have the necessary data, supervisory framework, and prudential regulation in a world where climate-related losses continue to rise and pose risks to the entire financial system. 

Statement: Leading the Pack, OCC Announces Climate Risk Guidance for Banks by Years End

Acting Comptroller Michael Hsu announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) plans to develop climate risk supervisory expectations for large banks and issue guidance for comment by the end of the year. Over the past year, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and partners have urged the OCC and other banking regulators to take this important initial step immediately. We applaud Acting Comptroller Hsu for his leadership on this issue and we urge the other regulators to follow suit and issue guidance by the end of the year.

Event: Americans for Financial Reform and Allies Protest Fed Chair Powell Sleepwalking on Climate Chaos, Racial Inequality, and Wall Street greed

Americans for Financial Reform and allies today rallied in front of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to highlight Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s failure to protect the U.S. economy from major systemic threats like climate change, racial and economic inequality, excessive risk-taking from the big banks, and private equity firms extracting wealth from communities and workers across the nation.

sunrise over a field of wind turbines

News Release: Treasury’s climate report light on specifics, regulators must go much farther, faster

The U.S. Treasury Department released its climate finance report on Thursday evening following a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) where members voted to approve the report. Though strong in some areas like climate risk disclosure and scenario analysis, the report largely highlights agency actions that are already underway, and it fails to lay out a comprehensive roadmap with specific recommendations and timelines for regulators to consider beyond the assessment and disclosure of climate risk, Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) and Public Citizen said. 

News Release: 40,000 petitioners to Yellen: Time for bold climate action in new report

Public Citizen, Sierra Club, 350.org, Americans for Financial Reform, Evergreen Action, and Action Center on Race and the Economy today delivered more than 40,000 petition signatures to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding that an upcoming report highlight the gravity of climate threats to our financial system and identify concrete steps that financial regulators should take to address them.

sunrise over a field of wind turbines

Fact Sheet: Bank Supervision and Climate Risk

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and partners Public Citizen, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Center for American Progress released a white paper outlining the key elements that federal bank regulators—including the Federal Reserve Board, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the National Credit Union Administration—can and should incorporate into public supervisory guidance for banks on assessing and addressing the risks faced by banks from climate change.

Letters to Regulators: Treasury Climate Finance Report

Americans for Financial Reform joined 38 organizations urging Secretary Yellen to produce a bold Treasury climate finance report. Climate change poses an existential threat to the economic security of households and communities across the nation and to the financial system. As the Chair of the FSOC, it is up to Secretary Yellen to lead the writing of a Treasury report that can serve as a comprehensive roadmap that recognizes the urgency and severity of the climate crisis, includes specific policies beyond assessment and disclosure, and encourages each of the independent agencies to use all available tools to mitigate climate risk and its drivers.