(Reuters) - Global financial regulators need a joint effort to address climate-related financial risks, the chair of the Financial Stability Board said on Sunday, urging the body tasked with setting disclosure standards to "press forward as quickly as possible."
Randal Quarles, who is also the Federal Reserve's Vice Chair for Supervision, also called for an international effort to develop comprehensive and comparable data on climate-related risks, including better information on the dangers of extreme weather events to business, bank and household balance sheets.
"Globally consistent, comparable, and reliable disclosures, as well as a broader set of high-quality, relevant data, together, can provide the basis to assess climate-related financial risks and the impact on financial stability," Quarles said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Venice International Conference on Climate Change.
Among efforts the FSB is spearheading, Quarles said, is coordinating work with global central banks on the financial metrics useful for scenario analyses, an approach to assessing bank risk to climate stressors underway in some countries but that faces political resistance in the United States.
The FSB, which coordinates financial rules for the G20 group of nations, earlier this week released a "climate roadmap" to help get international regulators on the same page as far as goals and milestones toward better managing climate-related risks.