“氣候風險可能對金融機構的資產負債表產生不利影響，特別是當市場沒有將氣候風險正確定價時，它可能影響金融穩定。”

歐洲中央銀行于5月29日發布的《金融穩定評估報告》中闡述氣候變化和金融穩定的“特色內容”中如是說。這不是第一次，也不是最后一次監管機構發表關于氣候風險的類似論斷，這代表著宏觀審慎當局對此的清醒認識，以及其對金融業的警示。

在歐洲央行報告發布前一周，英格蘭銀行發布了《物理氣候變化對財務影響的評估框架》。

同樣在5月，歐洲證券和市場管理局建立了可持續發展協調網絡，重點考慮“將可持續性政策納入金融監管”。美國商品期貨交易委員會（CFTC）也宣布，氣候相關風險會成為6月12日市場風險咨詢委員會會議的主題。CFTC專員Rostin Behnam說：“現在是時候讓美國發揮更積極的領導作用，與國際同行一起來解決這個問題了。”

很難找出一個確切的原因，解釋是什么引發了人們對氣候變化風險的高度關注，以及其對金融部門可能的破壞性影響。

英格蘭銀行行長，時任金融穩定委員會主席馬克·卡尼在2015年發表的講話可能是一個關鍵的歷史時刻。他提到金融穩定的“深遠影響”，以及“氣候變化將威脅金融業彈性和長期繁榮”的種種經濟和科學跡象。

Another factor may have been Super Storm Sandy's direct hit on the New York financial center in 2012; it caused $64 billion in damage, flooding of infrastructure and a shutdown of the New York Stock Exchange. Fast forward to 2019, and the bankruptcy filing of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. – which faced an estimated $30 billion liability stemming from California wildfires – was dubbed by the Wall Street Journal “the first climate change bankruptcy.”

Natural catastrophes resulted in $160 billion in losses last year, according to Munich Re, with such climate-related events as wildfires, extreme storms, drought and heat waves capturing the attention of the financial sector and its risk managers.

Whatever the impetus, awareness of climate change and its risks – the challenges and opportunities for financial firms, their customers and the investment portfolios managed on their behalf – is on the rise.

“The topic is definitely on the table for financial firms, at the same time that the issue is coming to the fore in civil society and to the attention of regulators,” says Emanuele Campiglio, assistant professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and co-author of several papers on the topic including Climate Change Challenges for Central Banks and Financial Regulators.

A big question for Campiglio and other observers is whether the upsurge of interest and activity will sufficiently and successfully stem the environmental impact. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we have only 11 years to ensure that a rise in global temperature is kept to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, beyond which even a half degree increase will significantly worsen the risks of drought, flood, heat and poverty for millions.

Global coalitions such as the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which was founded in 2015 by the Financial Stability Board and is chaired by Michael Bloomberg, have acted to push the agenda.

At the start, the task force called for entities in all sectors to be transparent by adopting a standardized approach to monitor and categorize climate change risk using scenarios and other tools. In 2017, it asked member companies – including financial institutions – to organize climate-risk disclosures around governance, strategy, risk management and targets. Participants are to explain how their programs for identifying and managing climate-related risks are integrated into their overall risk management frameworks, as well as set climate risk reduction targets in view of the 1.5-degree scenario.

The TCFD has grown to more than 500 supporters, including more than 280 financial firms such as Barclays, BlackRock, BNP Paribas Asset Management, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Swiss Re. 

In a September 2018 status report, TCFD said that a minority of companies disclose forward-looking climate targets or address the resilience of their strategies under different climate-related scenarios, a key goal. Financial companies, facing regulatory and shareholder pressures, are more likely than others to disclose how they have embedded climate risk into their overall risk management.

CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project, has aligned its information-gathering with the TCFD framework. CDP said that out of more than 6,000 companies reporting for its 2018 Global Climate Change Analysis: 73% have board-level oversight of climate-related risks; 72% integrate climate risk into their business strategy; and 55% integrate processes for identifying, assessing, and managing climate-related issues into multi-disciplinary risk management. “This is an important step in escalating climate-related issues from a siloed or isolated CSR/ESG department issue to a company-wide issue,” CDP said.

A more recent call to action came from the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a group of three dozen central banks and supervisors from around the world – including the Bank of England, Bank of France, and People's Bank of China (but none from the U.S.). The network said in an April report that climate-related risks must be viewed as a form of financial – not merely a reputational – risk, and thus they fall squarely within the mandates of central banks.

“The financial risks we face through climate change are analytically difficult, unprecedented and yet very urgent,” said Frank Elderson, executive director of the Dutch Central Bank and chairman of the NGFS.

The NGFS report says that a transition to a green and low-carbon economy “is crucial for our own survival,” and failure could result in increasingly severe and frequent heat waves, landslides, floods, wildfires and storms, all affecting such financial variables and stability factors as economic growth, productivity, food and energy prices, inflation expectations, and insurance costs.

The key risk, the NGFS notes, is that global warming is irreversible, and there is no mature technology to ensure that climate-induced problems will go away.

In May, 20 institutional investors from 11 countries – including Rockefeller Investment Management and Manulife Asset Management – were convened by the UN Environment Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and announced guidelines, in line with TCFD principles, to help investors assess climate change risk and opportunities. Other investor groups calling for financial sector participation in the reduction of climate change ills include Climate Action 100+ and the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change.

A few months earlier, former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen spoke in support of a carbon tax. It is an initiative of the Climate Leadership Council, a bipartisan group that includes other former government officials and Nobel laureates and has corporate supporters including Allianz, MetLife and Santander Group.

Money is flowing into environmental, social and governance (ESG) funds. At the start of 2018, $11.6 trillion in assets were overseen by U.S. money managers who consider ESG criteria as an investment factor. That increased from $8.1 trillion in 2016, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.

Research firm Aite Group said in an April report that spending on ESG-related services by asset owners and managers is expected to grow from $111 million in 2015 to $322 million in 2021.

“Institutional asset owners, particularly in Europe, are leading the way in terms interest and use of ESG ratings and analytics,” says Aite analyst and report author Paul Sinthunont. He notes there are at least 20 ESG rating and analysis systems, with ISS, MSCI, Refinitiv, Sustainalytics, and Video Eiris as the most prominent, alongside Bloomberg as a leading data provider.

In April, S&P Global introduced an ESG evaluation service through its Trucost subsidiary. The company describes it as separate from credit ratings and “a new benchmark that provides a cross-sector, relative analysis of an entity's capacity to operate successfully in the future,” that “is grounded in how [ESG] factors could affect its stakeholders and potentially lead to a material financial impact.”

證券交易所的關注

Exchange companies are also bolstering their ESG positioning. The Eurex exchange, for example, introduced ESG index futures early this year; they recently launched in the U.S. with CFTC approval.

In May, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing opened a two-month comment period for an update to its stock market's ESG reporting guide and listing rules,  saying, “Investors are increasingly willing to allocate capital in sustainable investments which take into account climate change concerns and ESG reporting of issuers, and are thus demanding more information on how issuers manage their ESG risks.”

On June 3, London Stock Exchange Group announced its acquisition of Beyond Ratings, a provider of ESG data for fixed-income investors.

Climate Change: Managing a New Financial Risk, a February report and survey by consulting firm Oliver Wyman with the International Association of Credit Portfolio Managers, advised that to prepare for the changing climate landscape, banks and other financial firms need to be in line with TCFD recommendations and treat climate risk as a financial risk. They should also integrate climate considerations into financial risk management programs.

“It is the risk team at financial firms – not the corporate social responsibility team – who need to be the owners of the climate risk assessment exercise,” says Oliver Wyman partner and report co-author Ilya Khakin.

The firm recommends adopting the TCFD methodology to assess not just physical risks that may result from climate change, but also transition risks – those associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy, resulting in “stranded assets” and the loss of value in carbon-intensive assets such as reserves of oil, gas and coal.

“Climate risk is a new type of risk that firms are grappling with,” Khakin says. “It is still too early to make precise measurements, but applying some measurement such as the TCFD guidance and climate scenario analysis is important, and so, we work with clients to help them integrate this data and analysis into their risk management organization.”

全球風險管理專業人士協會（GARP）致力于為風險管理條線上的各級人員，包括各大金融機構的風險從業者和監管機構人員提供風險教育和最新行業資訊。GARP China微信公眾號將持續轉載“GARP Risk Intelligence”系列文章，介紹科技、企業文化與治理、能源等領域對操作風險、信用風險、市場風險和資產負債管理的影響。讓我們一起全面認識風險，防范風險，化解風險。