CC adversely affects businesses and we have a limited window to stop it – it’s try or die.

Under pressure from shareholders and regulators, companies are increasingly disclosing the specific financial impacts they could face as the planet warms, such as extreme weather that could disrupt their supply chains or stricter climate regulations that could hurt the value of coal, oil and gas investments. Early estimates suggest that trillions of dollars may ultimately be at stake. Even so, analysts warn that many companies are still lagging in accounting for all of the plausible financial risks from global warming. “The numbers that we’re seeing are already huge, but it’s clear that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Bruno Sarda, the North America president for CDP, an international nonprofit that wrote the new report and works with companies around the world to publicly disclose the risks and opportunities that climate change could create for their businesses. Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In 2018, more than 7,000 companies submitted such reports to CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. And, for the first time, CDP explicitly asked firms to try to calculate how a warming planet might affect them financially. After analyzing submissions from 215 of the world’s 500 biggest corporations, CDP found that these companies potentially faced roughly $1 trillion in costs related to climate change in the decades ahead unless they took proactive steps to prepare. By the companies’ own estimates, a majority of those financial risks could start to materialize in the next five years or so. The disclosures show how business leaders expect climate change, and the policy responses to it, to ripple through every corner of the global economy. Many firms are bracing for direct impacts. Hitachi Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer, said that increased rainfall and flooding in Southeast Asia had the potential to knock out suppliers and that it was taking defensive measures as a result. Banco Santander Brasil, a large Brazilian bank, said increasingly severe droughts in the region might hurt the ability of borrowers to repay loans. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, Inc., noted that rising temperatures could increase the cost of cooling its energy-hungry data centers. Editors’ Picks Help! I Signed Up for a $4,800 Bird-Watching Trip but the Company Shut Down. New Zealand’s Fruit-Rich Ice Cream Gets a Sugary American Makeover Gretchen Whitmer Would Like You to Meet ‘Governor Barbie’ SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Image Google’s energy-hungry data centers could become more expensive to cool its parent company has said. Above, a Google data center facility in Iowa. Google’s energy-hungry data centers could become more expensive to cool its parent company has said. Above, a Google data center facility in Iowa.Credit...Brian Snyder/Reuters Others are keeping a close eye on the potential public reaction to climate change. Total, a French energy company, is grappling with the possibility that ambitious efforts by nations to limit global warming and restrict fossil fuel use could render some oil and gas reserves “unburnable.” BASF, a German chemical company, said it has a “significant corporate carbon footprint” that could scare off environmentally conscious shareholders unless it takes steps to act on climate change. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT In all, the world’s largest companies estimated that at least $250 billion of assets may need to be written off or retired early as the planet heats up. Those assets include buildings in high-risk flood zones, or power plants that may have to shut down in response to tighter pollution rules. Latest News on Climate Change and the Environment Card 1 of 6 Worms in the Arctic. As human-caused climate change raises temperatures and thaws the permafrost, worms are taking over territory in the Far North that’s been wormless since the last ice age. Scientists say the expansion will inevitably change northern ecosystems, with implications for the whole planet, in ways we don’t fully understand and probably can’t undo. Natural gas leaks. Natural gas, long seen as a cleaner alternative to coal and an important tool in the fight to slow global warming, can be just as harmful to the climate, a new study has concluded, unless companies can all but eliminate the leaks that plague its use. A law to repair nature. After an unexpectedly bitter political battle, European lawmakers approved a bill that would require E.U. countries to restore 20% of nature areas within their borders on land and at sea. The measure, a key element of the bloc’s Green Deal environmental initiative, passed with 336 votes in favor, 300 against and 13 abstentions. Underground heat in Chicago. Since the mid-20th century, the ground between Chicago’s city surface and the bedrock has warmed by 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit on average, according to a study out of Northwestern University. The heat has caused the earth to deform over the decades, potentially worsening cracks in building foundations. Heat waves. More than 61,000 people died because of brutal summer heat waves across Europe in 2022, according to a study published in the journal Nature Medicine. The findings suggest that two decades of efforts on the continent to adapt to a hotter world have failed to keep up with the pace of global warming. Heat records. As an astonishing surge of heat across the globe shattered temperature records from North America to Antarctica, forecasters warned that the Earth could be entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth driven by continued emissions of heat-trapping gases and the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern. The disclosures offer only a partial glimpse at the potential price tag of climate change. Only a fraction of companies worldwide currently report their climate risks, and many large firms, including energy giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron, did not submit a disclosure to CDP last year. The companies that do disclose often struggle to tease out precisely how rising temperatures might hurt or help them financially.