Environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks are becoming increasingly important to judging the credit worthiness of electric utilities, especially as climate change makes their work more challenging.
On this episode of the Columbia Energy Exchange, host Bill Loveless talks to Jim Hempstead, a managing director in Moody’s Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group. In his role at Moody’s, one of the largest credit ratings firms in the world, Jim helps oversee the North American Regulated Utility and Power Team. He also heads Moody’s working group in charge of ESG issues in the Americas.
In the conversation with Bill, Jim makes clear that defining ESG standards is still very much a work in progress for the credit rating firms and the companies they assess for credit worthiness. Nevertheless, ESG metrics are an important means of evaluating the utility sector where shifts are occurring not only due to climate change but also from public policies, market forces, and public attitudes about how electricity is produced and used.
Jim and Bill also talk about the relevance of government policy and regulation as it relates to ESG and the power sector, including recent developments in Washington D.C. and the enactment of an historic climate law in California.
This week host Bill Loveless talks with Timur Gül, head of the Energy Technology Policy Division at the International Energy Agency and leads the Energy Technology Perspectives report.
Critical minerals—such as aluminum, copper, lithium, and cobalt—will require unprecedented investment in order to make a shift to a clean energy system. Leveraging the increased global demand for these minerals is critical to achieving net-zero targets.
After years of political pressure, Democrats in Congress narrowly passed an historic climate bill at…
Establishing energy policy solutions informed by rigorous research and dialogue is key to addressing climate change, increasing access to energy, and sparking innovation for a thriving global energy economy.
Clean electrons are vital to the net-zero economy. What about molecules? There is a global…
As global warming mitigation and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions reduction become increasingly urgent to counter climate change, many nations have announced net-zero emission targets as a commitment to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Developing countries face the dual challenge of meeting rapidly growing energy demand while also scaling…
Energy access is central to reducing poverty. Energy is also critical to developing country efforts to move towards broader prosperity, which are significantly increasing their demand for energy.
A major military engagement could occur in the Asia-Pacific region in the form of a possible conflict between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
Energy security has long been a central objective of energy policy, yet remains poorly understood and defined. Assessing energy security risks, and how they are evolving, is key for both the public and private sector.
Establishing energy policy solutions informed by rigorous research and dialogue is key to addressing climate change, increasing access to energy, and sparking innovation for a thriving global energy economy.
Climate change is one of the central challenges of the 21st century. Building and linking the policies, technologies, financial systems, and markets needed to achieve climate goals is key to addressing this challenge.
Although it is a source of essentially carbon-free power, nuclear energy remains one of the most divisive components of the world’s primary energy mix. Its future rests largely on questions of cost, safety, waste management and proliferation-resistant technology.