NEW YORK (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he plans to sign two climate-related bills that would force big companies to be more transparent about greenhouse gas emissions and the financial risks of global warming.
Newsom’s announcement came during a trip out of state for New York Climate Week, where leaders in business, politics and the arts gather to seek solutions to climate change.
California lawmakers last week passed a law requiring large companies, from oil and gas companies to retail giants, to disclose their direct greenhouse gas emissions as well as those resulting from activities such as business travel by their employees.
Such disclosures are a “simple but extremely powerful driver of decarbonization,” said the bill’s author, Democrat Senator Scott Wiener.
“This legislation will support those companies that are doing their part to address the climate crisis and hold accountable those that are not,” Wiener said in a statement Sunday praising Newsom’s decision.
The law requires thousands of public and private companies that operate in California and generate more than $1 billion annually to report emissions. The aim is to increase transparency and encourage companies to evaluate how they can reduce their CO2 emissions.
The second bill, passed by the state Assembly last week, would require companies making more than $500 million a year to disclose what financial risks climate change poses to their companies and how they plan to address those risks.
State Sen. Henry Stern, a Los Angeles Democrat who introduced the bill, said the information would be useful to individuals and lawmakers in making public and private investment decisions. The bill was recently amended to require companies to start reporting in 2026 instead of 2024 and to require them to report every two years instead of annually.
Newsom, a Democrat, said he wants California to lead the nation in addressing the climate crisis. “We must not only exercise our formal authority, but we must share our moral authority more fully,” he said.
Newsom’s office announced Saturday that California has filed a lawsuit against some of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, claiming they misled the public about the risks of fossil fuels, which are now being blamed for climate change-related storms and wildfires. which caused billions of dollars in damage.
The civil lawsuit, filed in San Francisco State Supreme Court, also seeks to establish a fund funded by the companies to finance recovery efforts from devastating storms and fires.