Oil majors' credit ratings under threat from growing climate risks, Bank cop halts Trump rule, and more

S&P Global Ratings said Jan. 26 it is considering downgrading its credit ratings on a number of major oil and gas producers, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Total, to reflect a growing risk to their businesses from the energy transition, price volatility, and future profitability.

A key bank regulator on Thursday halted a last-minute, Trump-era rule that would prevent big banks from denying loans and other services to entire industries like energy or private prisons, a regulation that had drawn ire not just from Democrats but from banks themselves.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said the decision on the fate of the rule should be left to whomever President Joe Biden names to head the national bank regulator.

The Federal Reserve announced yesterday the creation of a first-of-its-kind committee — chaired by a senior-level official — to deepen the central bank's understanding of the risks that climate change poses to the financial system.

Kevin Stiroh, who currently leads the New York Fed's supervisory work, has been tapped for the job, which will entail tackling global warming alongside senior staff throughout the central banking system. That includes the Federal Reserve Board and the Fed's 12 reserve banks across the country.

We are climate activists and long-time residents of Westchester County. We fight investment funds that destabilize the Earth’s climate. We fear the impact of climate change not only on our lives, but on the lives of our children and all young people who will bear the consequences of today’s investments. The year of the pandemic has made our fears real and immediate to an extent we had not imagined possible. We have been reminded with utmost cruelty that we live in a fragile world, where lives and livelihoods can be lost with shocking speed.

The world today runs primarily on coal, oil and natural gas, collectively known as fossil fuels. Producing and burning these release methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that trap the sun’s heat and raise global temperatures, causing climate change. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a deliberative, consensus-bound body of scientists has concluded that we must halve our greenhouse gas emissions in the next ten years, and completely eliminate them by 2050 in order to stabilize our climate.