Commentary: Climate change poses financial risks. Why would officials want investors to ignore that fact?

Institutional investors, be they state treasurers managing funds for public safety and education or asset managers running mutual funds, are responsible for protecting and growing other people’s hard-earned savings.

To carry out this responsibility, institutional investors use a highly disciplined process to regularly assess the risks and opportunities facing the companies and other assets in their portfolio.

That ongoing risk and reward analysis is what the investment industry is all about. That’s why there are whole subfields of analysts who study the short- and long-term horizon of the economy, the fluctuations of specific industries