October 13, 2004


In this paper, written by Ron Ezekiel and Georald Ingborg of the Vancouver office and sponsored by Climate Change Central, securities disclosure requirements for climate change related risks are examined.

Every company that publicly offers securities in Canada and files a prospectus, or whose securities are traded on a Canadian exchange, becomes a public company or "reporting issuer" under Canadian securities law. That imposes important disclosure obligations on the company, its directors and senior management in relation to material business risks faced by the company and other information that could impact share value. The focus of this paper is to analyse these disclosure requirements in the context of business risks arising from climate change and climate change related regulation in Canada.

Model disclosure language is included for those climate change related risks the authors conclude could present a material risk to some companies with operations in Canada.