Climate Change

Long-Delayed Senate Climate Bill Considers Need for Transparency

Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) recently introduced long-awaited Senate climate change legislation. The bill seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, matching targets set in a House bill passed in 2009. The bill includes several provisions calling for transparent and participatory policies, especially relating to measures that would create new financial markets for buying and selling the right to pollute. How well such transparency would be implemented is a major question, and the success of the emissions reductions may depend on the level of openness that is built into the nation's climate change policy.

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SEC Guidance Addresses Disclosure of Climate Change Impacts

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took a significant step last month toward expanding the scope and quality of corporate disclosures as they pertain to the environment. On Jan. 27, the SEC voted to provide guidance "clarify[ing] what publicly-traded companies need to disclose to investors in terms of climate-related 'material' effects on business operations, whether from new emissions management policies, the physical impacts of changing weather or business opportunities associated with the growing clean energy economy."

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