News Release: Report Outlines KKR’s Harm to Frontline Communities As it Continues to Center a Fossil Fuel Strategy
A new report examines how Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and its affiliates have run three liquefied natural gas (LNG) investments.
Tag Archives: Climate Change
Letters to the Regulators: Letters to the Financial Stability Oversight Council in Support of Increased Supervision of Nonbank Companies and Revising the Analytic Framework for Assessing Financial Stability Risk
AFREF submitted comment letters to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) on two proposals that would strengthen its toolbox for addressing threats to financial stability, including those related to climate change, and make it easier to designate nonbank companies like asset managers and insurance companies as systemically important institutions that need enhanced regulation by the Federal Reserve Board.
The letters detail how threats to financial stability from nonbank financial institutions are growing, and it encourages FSOC to quickly strengthen and finalize its proposals to be able to respond effectively and proactively to emerging risks. Many nonbank financial institutions already face heightened stress from large climate-related shocks, including several major insurers’ recent decisions to withdraw coverage from many states and zip codes. Insurance companies, asset managers, private equity firms, and other nonbank financial institutions are also creating significant risks to the financial system through their insured or financed emissions — risks that are often forced upon other financial institutions and consumers who will struggle to manage them.
Letters to the Regulators: Letter to PCAOB Supporting Proposed Audit Standards to Report Noncompliance with Laws and Regulations, Including Climate Regulations
AFREF joined Public Citizen in a comment urging PCAOB to strengthen and swiftly finalize its proposed updated audit standards around reporting noncompliance with laws and regulations and identifying risks of material misstatement in financial statements. Climate-related accounting fraud is on the rise, and many companies are misrepresenting their financial position by underestimating their asset retirement obligations and environmental liabilities, and failing to substantiate public climate commitments in their financial statements and SEC filings.
The proposed regulatory updates from PCAOB would strengthen auditors’ responsibilities to identify and report these types of misstatements and fraud and provide a significant benefit to investors by catching costly noncompliance issues early before they harm financial performance, and to the public by deterring corporate law-breaking and noncompliance.
News Release: As Financial Risks from Climate Grow, Advocacy Groups Push FSOC to Enact Safeguards
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of advocacy groups today submitted multiple comment letters to the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) on two proposals that would strengthen its toolbox for addressing threats to financial stability, including those related to climate change, and make it easier to designate nonbank companies like asset managers and insurance companies as systemically important institutions that need enhanced regulation by the Federal Reserve Board. The comment periods on the proposals close on July 29.
Letters to Regulators: CFPB Should Finalize Residential PACE Rule and Develop Consumer Protections for Emerging Green Lending Products
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a comment letter, endorsed by 20 partner organizations, to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)’s proposed rule on residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing. The letter urges the CFPB to finalize the residential PACE rule swiftly to
Events: Lessons for Bank Regulation and Oversight from the 2023 Banking Stress
Please join the Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (“AFREF”) to discuss lessons learned from stressed conditions in banking during 2023. Keynote speaker Graham Steele, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions, will speak to the takeaways for bank regulation and oversight, followed by a distinguished panel of banking, financial regulation and climate finance experts moderated by AFR-AFREF’s Advocacy & Legislative Director Renita Marcellin
News Release: Federal Insurance Office Report Sees Fragmented Approach to Climate-Related Risks
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) today released a report on climate-related regulation and supervision of insurers. The report assesses the limitations of existing regulation and includes 20 recommendations.
Letters to Regulators: NCUA Should Bolster Staff Capacity, Training, Tools, Research & Analysis, and Guidance on Climate-related Financial Risk
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund submitted a comment letter endorsed by The Greenlining Institute and Public Citizen, in response to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA)’s request for information on climate-related financial risk. The letter urges the NCUA to proceed with critical next steps
Letters to Regulators: PCAOB Should Update “General Responsibilities” of Auditors, Address Climate Accounting Estimates and Assumptions
AFREF joined Public Citizen in responding to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s request for comment on General Responsibilities of the Auditor in Conducting an Audit (AS 1000). We commended the PCAOB for proposing to extend an auditor’s evaluation of fairness in AS 2810 beyond
In The News: American exceptionalism on climate risk amplifies financial instability (Green Central Banking)
“… it’s called climate change because the climate is changing, and much faster than scientists originally anticipated. We cannot merely use past data to predict future climate impacts,” wrote Alex Martin, senior policy analyst at AFR. “We must take a precautionary approach and heed the stern warnings from scientists about our dire current global trajectory. The US will not be spared the effects.”