Conference considers climate economic risks and opportunities

European Climate Diplomacy Week is a time
 for the EU to reach out to communities and
organisations all over the world, highlighting
positive global action on climate change.
 In collaboration with the EU Delegation
 to Australia and other partners, the EU Centre
 is co-presenting two free public events to inspire
 our community to embrace a zero emissions future.

Institutions from the OECD to the IMF, World Bank, and World Economic Forum have warned that climate change presents material – if not unparalleled – economic risks and opportunities.

The Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority has recently flagged that these financial risks translate into liability exposures of company directors, for their company’s contribution to anthropogenic climate change, a failure to adequately manage the physical or economic risks associated with climate change, and inaccurate disclosure or reporting of these factors.

These emerging exposures have implications for corporate governance in climate-risk exposed industries (from financial services to mining, infrastructure, agriculture, and beyond), investors (banks, asset owners and managers) and for the insurance sector (professional indemnity and directors’ and officers’ insurance).

The symposium will consider international developments in the law and liability for climate change damages, with a practical, inter-disciplinary perspective provided by leading directors, economists, investors and insurance-sector executives.

The EU Centre on Shared Complex Challenges will stage the two-day event, Climate Change Risk and Corporate Governance, at the University of Melbourne’s Pelham St Woodward Conference Centre later this month.

The two-day conference, on Monday and Tuesday, August 29 and 30 will consider directors’ duties and their liability exposures in a post-Paris World.