Top US securities regulator proposes a historic climate disclosure rule

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On The Carbon Copy podcast this week:

Public companies have a legal obligation to report a wide range of information on their financial performance and competitive risks. One area of liability that corporate America had not been required to disclose? Their exposure to climate risk.

But that changed last week when America’s top securities regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, released a new proposal that would require companies to disclose their financial vulnerabilities to climate change. 

This move toward greater corporate climate accountability in the U.S. builds on years of momentum. It’s the culmination of voluntary task forces, initiatives and mandatory disclosure regulations passed in other countries. 

This week, we discuss how this historic proposal mandating climate transparency could change corporate America — and how it will face inevitable political and legal backlash.

Guest: Kathleen Brophy, U.S. climate finance senior strategist with The Sunrise Project. 

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