This is especially powerful because one of the authors is Robert Herz, former Chairman of FASB.

Ideally, Mr Biden would be able to win bipartisan support for his policies. But, even with a sharply divided US Congress, the Biden administration can make significant progress on issues such as climate risk by using executive orders and existing regulatory powers. A few months ago, a report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission highlighted the powers available. It noted that financial regulators have “broad authority” to require disclosure of material information to investors, customers, and counterparties — including that on climate risks….the Securities and Exchange Commission should follow the lead of the UK’s Financial Reporting Council. In November, the latter urged companies to report climate information in line with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, and the independent non-profit Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. As a first step, the SEC should urge US companies to adopt these measures. To be clear, this SEC response would be motivated not by a political agenda but by genuine investor demand for transparency on financial performance. Already, 55 leading asset owners and asset managers — representing $41tn of assets under management — have asked companies to use SASB standards because they “improve understanding of company performance on ESG issues most relevant to long-term value creation”. At the same time, financial institutions responsible for $150tn of assets have expressed support for the climate task force recommendations.

Joe Biden must take a global lead on climate risk disclosure | Financial Times