A Majority of Companies Are Already Feeling the Climate Heat

(Bloomberg) – Climate change already has an impact on companies in the world.

In a recent Morgan Stanley report, more than half of the surveyed companies had the impact of the climate on operations last year, including increasing costs, workers’ disruptions and income losses. The research is a main reason for increasing financial impacts to continue to maintain emission cuts and continue to adapt to a world that heated even in the midst of political turbulence.

According to the new report, excessive heat and storms were followed by leading deductions, followed by fires and smoke, water scarcity and flood or rising sea levels. According to a recent Bloomberg intelligence analysis, only the US spent about 1 trillion dollars on disaster recovery and other needs of climate. The data collected by the US Census Office shows how these effects can play locally: for example, about two -thirds of the businesses in the Tampa Metro region have reported losses due to excessive weather after the last year’s hurricane season, when Helene and Milton fell ashore on the west coast of Florida.

Effects are almost limited to companies operating in the USA. This year’s Canadian forest fires forced the evacuation of oil sand projects in Alberta, Canada, while the disaster 2022 flood recently caused Toyota to sue over $ 360 million in South Africa. Extreme Heat forces Australian mining companies to adapt their operations.

The Morgan Stanley report included its first effects in the Middle East, North Africa and South America.

Findings show that approximately 90% of South American companies expect a risk to business models at the end of ten years. Companies listed the risk that raw material presence and pricing and existing production processes are not used among the biggest concerns. Although there are areas likely to survive, the Middle East and North Africa reported the highest rates of sustainability as a driving force of creating value.

However, the difficulties in North America, which companies see political volatility as the biggest obstacles of investing in sustainability, are different. The reaction to ESG led to the fact that 21% of North American companies, especially among the US Republicans, to report as the biggest obstacle to climate transitions. On the other hand, some companies received “Greenhushing – the phenomenon of forcing them to meet their climate targets – others have returned or abandoned emission targets.

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