Houston Chronicle:

In a survey of asset managers, almost three quarters said they don’t take into account global warming when analyzing a company, CERES, whose investors have $8.5 trillion under management, said today in a report. Almost half said climate change isn’t relevant to their investment decisions.

Pension funds, governments and private institutional investors are beginning to ask asset managers to include climate risk in their due diligence, according to the report. U.S. regulators are trying to make it easier for shareholders to seek information on environmental risks, and are giving “serious consideration” to requiring that companies disclose more about how global warming may hurt profits, CERES said.

“The subprime meltdown was about ignoring risk,” Mindy Lubber, president of Boston-based CERES, said in an interview. “We’re at the early stages of integrating climate risk and other sustainability risk into financial management.”

Here is the report:

Ceres_AssetMgrSurvey_Jan2010

Kate Sheppard:

What will climate change cost the US economy? To date, the political debate has been fixated almost exclusively on fears that carbon regulations will impose heavy burdens on American companies. But what about the costs that companies will incur if climate change continues unabated? Or the new opportunities that a carbon cap may create for some businesses, such as firms that make windmills or solar panels? Faced with a lack of reliable analysis of the full costs and benefits of both climate change and climate policies, a group of major investors wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to step in. On Monday, the investors wrote to the SEC asking the agency to come up with guidelines to help businesses properly account for climate-related factors that will affect their bottom lines.

Here is the letter:

Supplemental_Climate_Risk_Petition_Nov_23_2009 –