{"id":22870,"date":"2017-02-20T17:12:20","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T22:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22870"},"modified":"2017-02-20T17:12:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T22:12:20","slug":"are-fossil-fuel-companies-telling-investors-enough-about-the-risks-of-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=22870","title":{"rendered":"Are Fossil Fuel Companies Telling Investors Enough About the Risks of Climate Change?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2017\/02\/18\/fossil-fuel-companies-telling-investors-enough-risks-climate-change\">Are Fossil Fuel Companies Telling Investors Enough About the Risks of Climate Change?<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-11484 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<header>\n<p class=\"submitted desktop-only\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/exxon-gas-sign_credit_Mike-Mozart_creative-commons.jpg?itok=9L9cZo-M\" alt=\"Exxon gas station sign\" width=\"826\" height=\"503\" \/><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"horizontal-social-bar horizontal-social-bar-top clearfix\">\n<div class=\"horizontal-share-left\">Prior to President\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0taking office,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/ag.ny.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2016.10.26_ny_v._pwc_and_exxon_decision_and_order.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">there was a push<\/a>\u00a0to require oil and gas companies to inform their investors about the risks of climate change. As governments step up efforts to regulate carbon emissions, the thinking goes, fossil fuel companies\u2019 assets could depreciate in value over\u00a0time.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\n<p>The Securities and Exchange Commission, for example,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/sec-investigating-exxon-on-valuing-of-assets-accounting-practices-1474393593\" target=\"_blank\">was probing<\/a>\u00a0how ExxonMobil discloses the impact of that risk on the value of its reserves. And\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sasb.org\/investors-sec-sustainability-disclosure\/\" target=\"_blank\">disclosure advocates<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdsb.net\/news\" target=\"_blank\">have been pressing<\/a>\u00a0the agency to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.institutionalinvestor.com\/article\/3558720\/investors-endowments-and-foundations\/michael-bloomberg-pushes-companies-to-reveal-climate-risk.html\" target=\"_blank\">take more decisive action<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Now that Republicans control Congress and the White House, will the\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">SEC<\/span>\u00a0reverse course? And should\u00a0it?<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s apparent skepticism regarding climate change may portend such a change in direction. And Congress\u2019\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2017\/01\/31\/politics\/oil-industry-regulations\/\" target=\"_blank\">decision to roll back transparency rules for\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span>\u00a0energy companies<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/republicans-are-poised-to-roll-out-their-roll-back-of-dodd-frank-law-1486315341\" target=\"_blank\">Dodd-Frank Act<\/a>\u00a0suggests transparency policy more broadly is being\u00a0loosened.<\/p>\n<p>The terms of this debate, however, remain premised on the notion that investors don\u2019t have enough information to accurately assess the impact of climate change on company value. A growing body of academic research, including our own, suggests they already do and that a compromise path that improves the terms and conditions for voluntary disclosure might be\u00a0optimal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cStranded\u201d\u00a0Assets<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Such a change in direction would be good news for ExxonMobil in its fight with the\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">SEC<\/span>\u00a0over climate change\u00a0disclosure.<\/p>\n<p>Last year,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/29\/business\/energy-environment\/exxon-concedes-it-may-need-to-declare-lower-value-for-oil-in-ground.html\" target=\"_blank\">ExxonMobil announced<\/a>\u00a0that 4.6 billion barrels of oil and gas assets \u2014 20 percent of its current inventory of future prospects \u2014 may be too expensive to tap. That would be the largest asset write-down in its history. So far, the company\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-exxon-mobil-results-idUSKBN15F1JR\" target=\"_blank\">has written down<\/a>\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">US<\/span>$2 billion in expensive, above-market cost natural gas assets. More write-downs \u2014 this time possibly oil sands \u2014 may be\u00a0forthcoming.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are Fossil Fuel Companies Telling Investors Enough About the Risks of Climate Change? Prior to President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0taking office,\u00a0there was a push\u00a0to require oil and gas companies to inform their investors about the risks of climate change. As governments step up efforts to regulate carbon emissions, the thinking goes, fossil fuel companies\u2019 assets could depreciate in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[141,7844,1041,328,7651,3929],"class_list":["post-22870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-donald-trump","tag-exxonmobil","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-securities-and-exchange-commission","tag-stranded-assets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22870"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22871,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870\/revisions\/22871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}