Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
New Zealand has become the first country in the world to introduce a law on mandatory climate- related disclosures.
The new law will require banks, insurers and investment managers to report the impacts of climate change on their business.
Minister for climate change James Shaw said all banks with total assets of more than NZ$1 billion ($703 million), insurers with more than NZ$1 billion in total assets under management, and all equity and debt issuers listed on the country’s stock exchange will have to make the disclosures.
“We simply cannot get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 unless the financial sector knows what impact their investments are having on the climate,” Shaw said in a statement.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who returned to power October 2020 delivering the biggest election victory for her centre-left Labour Party in half a century, had called climate change the nuclear free moment of our generation.
The bill, which has been introduced to the country’s parliament and is expected to receive its first reading this week, requires disclosures for financial years beginning next year once the law is passed, meaning that the first reports will be made by companies in 2023.
The country wants to be carbon neutral by 2050 and says the financial sector needs to play its part.
