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S.E.C. Approves New Climate Rules Far Weaker Than Originally Proposed [1]

['Hiroko Tabuchi', 'Ephrat Livni', 'David Gelles']

Date: 2024-03-06

The Securities and Exchange Commission approved new rules on Wednesday detailing if and how public companies should disclose climate risks and how much greenhouse gas emissions they produce, but there are fewer demands on businesses than the original proposal made about two years ago.

The rules represent a step toward requiring corporations to inform investors of their greenhouse gas emissions as well as the business risks they face from floods, rising temperatures and weather disasters. An earlier and more all-encompassing proposal faced outspoken Republican backlash and opposition from a range of companies and industries, including fossil fuel producers.

The main difference: Under the original proposal, large companies would have been required to disclose not just planet-warming emissions from their own operations, but also emissions produced along what’s known as a company’s “value chain” — a term that encompasses everything from the parts or services bought from other suppliers, to the way that people who use the products ultimately dispose of them. Pollution created all along this value chain could add up.

Now, that requirement is gone.

In addition, the biggest companies will have to report the emissions they directly produce, but only if the companies themselves consider the emissions “material,” or of significant importance to their bottom lines, a qualification that leaves corporations leeway. Thousands of smaller businesses are exempt, another big change from the original proposal, which would have required all publicly traded corporations to disclose their direct emissions.

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/climate/sec-climate-disclosure-regulations.html

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