"S.E.C. Is Criticized for Lax Enforcement of Climate Risk Disclosure"

"As recently as 2011, shares in Peabody Energy, the world’s biggest private sector coal company, traded at the equivalent of $1,000. Today, they hover around $4 each. Over that time, investors who held the stock lost millions.

Peabody, like other coal companies, has been hammered as cheap natural gas erodes the demand for coal. But concerns about climate change are also an issue for the company as customers and investors turn away from fossil fuels.

Peabody saw this coming. Even as the company privately projected that coal demand would slump and prices would fall, it withheld this information from investors. Instead, Peabody said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was not possible to know how changing attitudes toward climate change would affect its business."

David Gelles reports for the New York Times January 23, 2016.

SEE ALSO:

"Fresh Warnings Of Oil Patch Stress From Ratings Firm" (EnergyWire)

"Amendment Eyes Fossil Fuel Disclosure on Climate" (Daily Environment Report)