Last month a group of more than 60 institutional investors and asset managers with collective assets totaling more than $4 trillion, and leading publicly traded corporations, issued a climate policy call to action requesting Congress and the Federal government to take prompt action on global climate change. The coalition, called Investors and Business for U.S. Climate Action, is the first group of leading U.S. investors to issue a statement of this kind, and the first to outline the business and economic rationale for climate action.

It calls for U.S. government actions that are needed to enable the business and investment communities to reduce climate-related business uncertainty and risks and capture climate-related opportunities. The four-page statement, coordinated by Ceres and the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), differs in several key ways from similar statements issued earlier this year by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) and the Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GroCC).

And the response to date? Not much. Ceres reports that to date there has been no response from any of the letters concerning the climate Policy Call to Action sent to President Bush, and the SEC. Against overwhelming evidence, the current government has yet to substantively address climate change risks. Every member of Congress also received a letter and so far only one has made a formal response. Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, released a press release applauding the Climate Policy Call to Action. 

Here is a link to Ceres’ press release.