Can Investors Price the Risk? Assessing Municipal Bond Climate Disclosure and Financial Resilience

Municipal governments face growing financial exposure from wildfires, floods, hurricanes, extreme heat, and other severe weather, yet investors may not be receiving the information needed to accurately assess those risks. This Ceres report analyzes 60 municipal bond offerings from 20 high-risk U.S. metropolitan areas to evaluate the quality of climate-related financial disclosures. It finds that many disclosures rely on generic language, focus on past disasters rather than future exposure, and fail to communicate resilience investments. The report examines disclosure against the TCFD framework and offers recommendations to help municipal issuers provide more specific, measurable, and forward-looking information about financial risk and resilience.