NEW YORK (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday he plans to sign into law a pair of climate-focused bills aimed at forcing large corporations to be more transparent about greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse and the financial risks derived from global warming.
Newsom’s announcement came during a trip out of state to attend Climate Week New York, where global leaders in business, politics and the arts gather to seek solutions to climate change.
Last week, California lawmakers passed legislation requiring large companies, from oil and gas companies to retail giants, to disclose their direct greenhouse gas emissions, as well as those that come from activities such as business travel. of its employees.
Such disclosures are a “simple but intensely powerful driver of decarbonization,” said the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat.
“This legislation will support companies doing their part to address the climate crisis and create accountability for those that don’t,” Wiener said in a statement Sunday applauding Newsom’s decision.
Under the law, thousands of public and private companies that operate in California and earn more than $1 billion a year will be required to make emissions disclosures. The goal is to increase transparency and encourage companies to evaluate how they can reduce their carbon emissions.
The second bill passed last week by the state Assembly requires companies that make more than $500 million a year to disclose what financial risks climate change poses to their businesses and how they plan to address those risks.
State Sen. Henry Stern, D-Los Angeles, who introduced the legislation, said the information would be useful to individuals and lawmakers when making public and private investment decisions. The bill was recently amended to require companies to begin reporting in 2026, instead of 2024, and to require them to report every two years, instead of annually.
Newsom, a Democrat, said he wants California to lead the nation in addressing the climate crisis. “We need to exercise not only our formal authority, but we must share our moral authority more abundantly,” he said.
Newsom’s office announced Saturday that California has filed a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, alleging they misled the public about the risks of fossil fuels now blamed for climate change-related storms and wildfires. that caused billions of dollars in damage.
The civil suit filed in state Superior Court in San Francisco also seeks the creation of a fund, financed by businesses, to pay for recovery efforts after devastating storms and fires.
