Nowhere to hide from climate risk

Australia’s Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Wesfarmers have faced mounting pressure from shareholders to step up their actions to curb climate change emissions.

The Climate Action 100+ initiative, launched in Paris today, will target 100 global companies responsible for an estimated 15% of global emissions.

This marks a heightened escalation of pressure from investors on large global corporates to address greenhouse gas emissions, improve climate-related financial disclosures and increase governance on climate change.

Two years on from the Paris climate accord and many investors feel not enough is being to achieve the agreed goal of limiting the global rise in average temperatures to no more than two degrees.

Anne Simpson, investment director of sustainability at CalPERS, the largest public pension system in the United States, told SMH there was “nowhere to hide from climate risk”.

“Ultimately shareholders are the owners of these companies and … if we don’t make sure these companies make the transformation to a low carbon economy we are exposed to the risks of their emissions, not just directly through the investments we’ve got in those companies but also by the indirect impact on all the other assets in our portfolio,” she said.