New CBA case a warning: Step up on climate change, or we’ll see you in court

In a global first, Australian mum-and-dad shareholders Guy and Kim Abrahams have launched a case against the Commonwealth Bank, arguing that the bank has breached the law by not disclosing the risks climate change poses to its business.

“Banks, investors and super funds have a choice: step up
on climate change today and become leaders, or face
similar action as more shareholders step forward to
 take them on over their failure to act.” 

Buying their shares over 20 years ago, Guy and Kim were making “an investment in their children’s futures”. A climate-changed world of financial risk, social upheaval and environmental degradation is clearly not the future they signed up for.

Climate change is an immediate threat to the entire global financial system. This was the ominous warning that came from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority earlier this year. And they’re taking it seriously, declaring that they’ll be stress-testing the Australian financial system to force the financial sector to do more to transition to a clean economy. They’re right to do so.

Climate change is the “tragedy of the horizon,” governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney warned in a landmark speech in Berlin last year.

“We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors – imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix”, he said.

Read John Hewson’s story in The Guardian - “New CBA case a warning: Step up on climate change, or we’ll see you in court.”