Ask Your Central Banker If Climate Change Is Hurting You
By the time financial companies realize just how natural disasters and rising seas will affect their business, it will probably be too late.
Some holes are too big to dig out of.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Toward the end of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony before Congress this week, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz asked him, “Do you agree that climate change creates financial risks for the individual financial institutions and for our financial system as a whole?” His answer reveals the challenge in finding a long-term, universal answer to business as usual. It also raises questions: What kind of risk does climate change represent, and what will companies do about it?
Powell’s response suggests that while the Fed isn’t doing nothing about climate change, it isn’t doing much, either: