On April 9th, the SEC’s Division of Examinations issued a “Risk Alert” regarding three types of financial firms – investment advisers, registered investment companies, and private funds – that offer Environmental, Social & Governance (“ESG”) products and services. The Examinations Division is prioritizing review of ESG practices in response to the rapidly growing demand by… Read More »
A new challenge: pricing climate risks In recent remarks, financial regulators across the globe have stressed the importance of understanding the effect of climate risks on the financial system. In a statement released on November 9, 2020, Governor Lael Brainard of the U.S. Federal Reserve stressed the importance of lenders’ abilities to identify and measure the risks posed by climate change. In particular, she emphasizes the importance of moving “from… Read More »
This post first appeared on the Climate Risk Disclosure Lab’s website. The physical effects of climate change are wreaking havoc across the United States as extreme weather events are increasing in severity and frequency. The 2020 summer wildfires in the western U.S. broke “almost every record there is to break,” and there has been a notable… Read More »
Several major announcements over the past two weeks indicate U.S. financial regulators are finally starting to take climate change seriously. The timing is no coincidence. The election of Joe Biden as our next president freed financial regulators from facing the wrath of President Trump and his acolytes for simply acknowledging that climate change is real.… Read More »
This post first appeared on the Climate Risk Disclosure Lab website. The Lab is a collaboration between the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law, Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and the National Whistleblower Center. Building upon prior European Union (“EU”) disclosure initiatives including the 2010 Timber Regulation and the 2017 Conflict Minerals Regulation, the… Read More »
The New Deal was a bonds financing strategy of the United States of America between 1932 and 1939. In total, 15 to 35 billion was spent on a series of development programs that funded public work projects, financial reform, and economic development. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s overarching goal for the project was to relieve and reform… Read More »
The EU’s Fintech Action Plan (now Digital Finance Strategy) and the Sustainable Finance Strategy represent important pillars of the bloc’s current policy agenda. While the two areas have been treated as separate for a long time, they present certain common features and great potential if combined. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity for countries in… Read More »
The following is the executive summary of a new report from the Climate Risk Disclosure Lab that highlights the need for a thorough, robust, and mandatory disclosure framework for climate-related information. The report exposes the failure of U.S. regulators to properly incorporate climate change into their mandates and assesses the threats that the vacuum of… Read More »
This post first appeared on the Climate Risk Disclosure Lab website. The Lab is a collaboration between the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law, Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and the National Whistleblower Center. On June 23, 2020, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a proposed regulation for public comment aimed… Read More »
Hurricane Delta’s landfall in Louisiana last week marked the tenth named storm to hit the United States this year, breaking the record set in 1916. Records, of the ignominious sort, have also been set on the West Coast. California has experienced six of its twenty largest wildfires this year, and on August 16th, Death Valley… Read More »
