Editorial from Anne M. Perrault and Gaël Giraud published in Science

Anne M. Perrault is a senior climate finance policy counsel at Public Citizen (Washington DC). Gaël Giraud is the founder and director of the Georgetown Environmental Justice Program (Georgetown University) and Professor at McCourt School of Public Policy. Together, they published last September an Editorial in the famous academic journal Science, entitled Trickle-down climate risk regulation.

The authors review the current strategy of the U.S. regulator, which focuses on climate risk assessment for the largest banks. This approach neglects the financial and physical risks that will arise from climate change at the smaller scales of community banks.

“US banking regulators must reduce threats to bank safety and soundness at every level of the financial system. They should adopt measures that incentivize and require banks to reduce their financed emissions, starting with directing banks to develop science-based plans to accomplish this transition and supporting restrictions on financing of coal and new fossil fuel development.”