第一周：視頻：https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1cw411Z7nW

Regulators（監(jiān)管部門） want firms to?own up to climate risks

own up to /doing sth.承擔(dān)責(zé)任、坦白

That is good news for investors. And for the planet?

America’s main?financial regulator is taking an interest in climate change—and wants everyone to know./?The Securities?and Exchange Commission (SEC)（（美）證券交易委員會）?has created a task-force（特別工作組）?to examine environmental,social and governance (ESG) issues, appointed a climate tsar（氣候顧問）?and said it will “enhance its focus” on climate-related disclosures（公開性原則） for listed firms（上市公司）./ It looks poised to introduce, among other things（插入語）, rules forcing firms to reveal how climate change or efforts to fight it（指climate change） may affect their business.

be poised to do 準(zhǔn)備好做...

Since September regulators in Britain, New Zealand and Switzerland?（瑞士）have said they plan to make such climate-related disclosures mandatory（義務(wù)的，強(qiáng)制的）. So, too, have stock exchanges （證券交易所）in Hong Kong, London and South Korea. The?EU?may follow suit.

The flurry of rule making stems from（根源是） a concern that climate change poses a threat to financial stability. Whether this is true or not is hard to say. The data are shoddy（粗制濫造的） and climate-risk reporting is largely voluntary.（自愿的）. Firms tend to cherry-pick （擇優(yōu)挑選）the most flattering（使人顯得漂亮的）numbers and methodologies（n. [經(jīng)] 方法論（methodology的復(fù)數(shù)形式））. The reporting seldom reveals anything about a firm's risk in the future—which is where the financial threats from climate change mostly reside（存在于）.

?flurry of sth一陣（忙亂）

Many watchdogs（監(jiān)察人員） are pinning their hopes?on the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures(TCFD), set up in 2015 by the Financial Stability Board (FSB), a global group of regulators. TheTCFD has recommended a reporting standard made up of 11 broad categories, from carbon footprints（碳足跡） to climate-risk management.Regulators like it because it focuses on material（重大的、重要的 多用于金融報表中）?risks rather than environmental impacts, and because it asks for information about firms’ future plans. That includes “scenario（情景）? analysis”, in which a company’s strategy is tested against potential futures, such as a hotter world or higher carbon prices（碳價格）.

pin one's hopes?on sb/sth將希望寄托于...

These qualities also appeal to financiers. Financial firms（金融機(jī)構(gòu)）?make up almost half of the 1,800 or so companies that back（支持） theTCFD‘s recommendations.Together they hold assets worth over $150trn and include the world’s ten biggest asset managers（資產(chǎn)管理機(jī)構(gòu)） and eight of its ten biggest banks. Their clients and regulators are egging them on to adopt the standard, so the financial firms in turn are prodding （督促，prod的現(xiàn)在分詞）companies to do so, too, causing an uptick（小幅增加） in its use.

egg sb on 慫恿、鼓動

prod sb into (doing) sth.督促、激勵?

Not all companies are happy about this. It means compliance （遵從）with one more?ESG?measure, and a tricky（棘手的） one at that（還、且）. Many bosses claim their firms lack the expertise（專門知識） to do climate-based scenario analysis (the?TCFD’s recent 133-page how-to guide（操作指南） may help). Only 7% of big firms disclose（公開） such exercises, according to a review（審查、報告）?of 1,700-odd（多一點） companies by the?TCFD. Those that do（定于修飾 those） often use different scenarios, making their efforts hard to compare.

造句：You are my lover，a good one，at that.

X-odd X多一點點? 造句：300-odd books 三百多一點的書

Another problem is that disclosures may scare off（把人嚇跑） investors. This, of course, is the point. But until reporting is mandatory for everyone, firms risk being punished for being early adopters. That is the evidence from France, which made climate-risk disclosures obligatory（強(qiáng)制的）for asset managers, insurers（保險公司） and pension funds（養(yǎng)老基金） in 2016.A study by its central bank compared those firms with French banks and non-French financial firms. It found that the firms which had to disclose climate risks held 40% fewer bonds（債券）, stocks and other securities（證券） in fossil-fuel （化石燃料）firms by value than those that did not have to disclose risks.

Such a shift may drive up capital costs（資本成本） for polluting projects and lead to fewer emissions. But more climate disclosure will not by itself cut carbon, notes Remco Fischer of the UN Environment Programme（聯(lián)合國環(huán)境署）. Regulatory climate risk can,in theory, be mitigated（緩和）?by moving carbon-heavy assets somewhere with laxer（lax：不嚴(yán)格，松懈的） environmental rules. And sophisticated risk assessments do not always result in decarbonisation（脫碳）. Last year AGL Energy, an Australian utility（公共事業(yè)）, published an analysis of scenarios. The one it has chosen to follow involves keeping one of its coal-fired（燒煤的）?power stations open until 2048.