Public Citizen and Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) released detailed policy recommendations today to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for its forthcoming report on climate-related financial risk.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) applauds the Labor Department for issuing this proposal to better allow and encourage retirement plans and pensions to consider sustainability factors like workers’ rights, racial justice, corporate governance, and climate change when investing.
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.
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.
Dear President Biden,
We are deeply concerned by the lack of progress being made by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (the Fed) on the assessment and mitigation of climate risk in the financial system. The Fed has failed to take proactive measures to address the risks that banks and the financial system face from climate change. This must change.
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen submitted a joint comment letter to the SEC calling for mandatory climate and ESG disclosures for all issuers, in response to Commissioner Allison Herren Lee’s Request for Public Input. “A growing chorus of bipartisan U.S. financial regulators
Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and Public Citizen were joined by 60 organizations and securities law experts in a comment letter to the SEC calling for mandatory climate and ESG disclosures for all issuers.
“Investors know that climate change is a threat that some companies aren’t taking seriously enough. They need information that lets them better understand climate risks and opportunities to see who they can trust to thrive in a low-carbon future economy.”
–Alex Martin, Senior Policy Analyst, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund
President Biden today issued an executive order that outlines the administration’s plan to manage the financial risks associated with the climate crisis. The order highlights the administration’s determination to use all the resources of the federal government to combat the threat that climate change poses to financial stability.
AFREF and 17 organizations sent a letter in response to FHFA’s RFI on climate and natural risk management detailing our concerns about the disproportionate impact of climate change and natural disasters on borrowers and communities of color and low and moderate income neighborhoods. We provided recommendations for next steps on FHFA’s work on mitigating climate risk and urged FHFA to make sure climate risk mitigation efforts do not cause inadvertent harm to the communities who are already most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and who face the most challenges in accessing and sustaining homeownership.