Oil companies need to disclose more information on climate-proofing – think tank

Investors fly blind when trying to figure out what impact growing climate concerns may have on future production at oil and gas firms, an influential think tank has said.

Companies, including those listed in London, are not disclosing “anywhere near enough information” for investors to take informed decisions on their long-term viability, Carbon Tracker said.

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The group called on firms, including Shell and BP, to add their expected future spending on exploration and development to financial reports, allowing investors to assess whether they may lose some of their assets due to new policies.

The firms should also be more transparent when calculating if their business model can survive a world which tries to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2.0 degrees Celsius, the report’s lead author Kate Woolerton told City A.M.

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“It’s about companies being more transparent in general. And then investors can make their own fully informed decision, because they have all the information they need,” she said.

Key to this is comparability across companies. So you need all companies to be disclosing roughly the same kind of stuff so that an investor can make a decision on whether one company is going to fair better than another in a climate-constrained world.”