Jan 28, 2021
New U.S.
President Joe Biden has made climate change a priority and is
setting the nation on a much more sustainability-focused path than
his predecessor.
Just days into his term, Biden had already has taken dozens of
executive actions, including rejoining the Paris agreement on
climate change and ordering a review of rules the Trump
administration finalized in the last days of its term.
In the latest episode of S&P Global podcast ESG Insider,
we talk to experts about what the change of administration and the
inherent regulatory uncertainty mean for sustainability-minded
companies and investors.
We hear from Josh Zinner, CEO of the Interfaith Center on
Corporate Responsibility. ICCR, a global coalition of institutional
investors, engages with corporations on a wide range of ESG issues.
Zinner said climate-minded investors take the long view and ignored
the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda in the expectation
that the pendulum would eventually swing back in their favor, which
it now has under Biden.
We talk to Alex Bond, one of the regulatory leads at the
Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investor-owned
electric utilities in the U.S. Bond said the sector has been
focused on climate for years and that utilities, like investors,
take a long-term view.
And we interview former bank regulator John Geiringer, who
said that the tone in the financial sector was already shifting to
take climate risk more seriously, even before the administration
change.
Photo source: Getty Images