US regulators endorse efforts to address climate risks
ABC News
U.S. financial regulators are acknowledging climate change to be a serious threat to the stability of the nation’s financial system
WASHINGTON -- U.S. financial regulators on Thursday approved a series of steps toward addressing the dangers that climate change poses to the nation’s financial system.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is headed by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and includes Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, acknowledged in a report that climate change is a serious economic threat.
“Climate-related impacts in the form of warming temperatures rising sea levels, droughts, wildfires, intensifying storms and other climate related events are already imposing significant costs upon the public and the economy,” the council’s 133-page report says. “It is the responsibility of the council and its members to ensure the financial system’s resiliency to climate related risks.”
The report includes more than 30 proposals aimed at improving efforts to the assess risks. It put forward recommendations to upgrade the collection of risk data and also ways of making sure the public has access to the data.
