Michael Bloomberg Pushes Companies to Reveal Climate Risk

Originally posted on Institutional Investor

When former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in March that he would not be running for U.S. president, at least one person may have been quietly cheering: Bank of England governor Mark Carney. In his role as chair of the Financial Stability Board, Carney had tapped the billionaire businessman in December to head up the FSB’s newly created Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures — a position Bloomberg would likely have had to relinquish given the rigors of a presidential campaign.

Bloomberg was a logical choice to chair the task force, which was first proposed by Carney during a speech at a Lloyd’s of London event last September. During his 12 years as mayor of New York, he spearheaded environmental initiatives like the NYC Clean Heat program that dramatically improved the city’s air quality. As Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Bloomberg in 2014 helped launch the Compact of Mayors, a global coalition of officials committed to reducing carbon emissions and making cities more resilient to climate change that has grown to more than 500 members. And Bloomberg Philanthropies — a nonprofit that distributed $510 million in 2015 — has been actively engaged with groups in China and India to tackle climate issues.

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