Billionaire Michael Bloomberg helped kick off the second anniversary of the Paris climate change accord on Tuesday by announcing a new agreement by 237 firms vowing to support the former New York mayor’s push to get companies to disclose climate-related financial data.
“Climate change poses both economic risks and opportunities,” Bloomberg said in a statement as chairman of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. “But right now, companies don’t have the data they need to accurately measure the risks and evaluate the opportunities.”
He said the lack of climate-related financial data “prevents” the private sector from making investments that are both climate friendly and economically viable with strong returns on investment.
Bloomberg’s announcement was made to kick off the One Planet Summit in Paris to highlight the need for greater climate-change financing while simultaneously marking the two-year anniversary of the Paris climate deal.
Former President Barack Obama entered the U.S. into the nonbinding agreement on Dec. 12, 2015. President Trump announced June 1, 2017, the U.S. would exit the deal. Bloomberg, nor any of the companies that signed on to his pledge, made any mention of Trump’s decision.
Bloomberg’s announcement is meant to undergird French President Emanuel Macron and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim’s planned announcement on Tuesday to pledge the continued flow of climate-related financing. Kim wants the large development bank to increase the amount of climate-related funding from the bank to nearly 30 percent of all the bank’s business by 2020.
Bloomberg’s task force has a set of recommendations to help empower companies to measure and report risks in a more standardized way. He said the response from “businesses and investors around the world has been incredibly positive, and we hope many others will join the initiative.”
The list of the 237 companies that signed on to the task force’s recommendations includes big banks such as HSBC, utility firms such as NRG, global shipping giants such as Maersk, chemical companies such as Dow and Dupont, automakers such as Daimler, and luxury brands such as Burberry.
The list also includes large oil companies like Norway’s multinational Statoil and France’s oil and gas firm Total.
“Climate change has to be and is integrated into Total’s strategy,” said Patrick Pouyanné, Total’s chairman of the board and CEO. “Transparency on climate and long-term issues through adequate reporting and disclosure is key for investors and other stakeholders.”
Total made the decision last year to begin publishing voluntarily “its first dedicated annual ‘ClimateReport’ and we encourage other companies to do so,” the chairman explained.
