In response to the release of the Biden Administration’s government-wide climate-risk strategy, Evergreen Action Campaigns Director Lena Moffitt released the following statement:

“In the government-wide climate financial risk strategy released today, the Biden administration acknowledged in no uncertain terms that climate change poses a systemic risk to our financial well-being, and that we must reduce greenhouse pollution in order to stabilize our financial system. The report lays out some important steps to protect the hard-earned money of American taxpayers, by better protecting pensions and ensuring tax dollars are spent in climate-conscious ways. But further action is needed to protect Americans’ life savings, homes, and small businesses from the threat of a climate-fueled recession.

“To truly mitigate the threat that climate change poses to our financial system, the administration must address the drivers of climate financial risk, as the Executive Order itself called for. The White House must take steps to end government financial support for fossil fuels, and use all possible tools to ensure the private sector does the same. The administration’s proposal to consider giving preference to federal contractors with lower carbon footprints is a promising example of concrete action, but much more is needed. With this report as a baseline, we now need to see a detailed timeline for how and when every federal agency will take action to address climate risk and ramp down financing for fossil fuels. As the report itself makes clear, there is no more time to waste.”

The new report was called for in the president’s Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk earlier this year. Last month, Evergreen called for this government-wide strategy to recommend that the federal government reduce its own financing of fossil fuels wherever possible, and call on all federal agencies to use their authority to encourage (or require, where possible) the private sector to reduce financing of fossil fuels.

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