Utility Giant’s CEO Talks Fires And Climate Change

Facing $17 Billion in Fire Damages, a CEO Blames Climate Change

Mark Chediak, August 13, 2018 (Bloomberg News)

“…[California authorities don’t yet know the cause of some of the 2017 and 2018 wildfires], but the region’s giant utility, PG&E Corp., sees a culprit at work -- climate change. The blazes in recent years, it said, are the latest example of how global warming has produced unusually hot, dry conditions that spawn more frequent and intense fires. ‘Climate change is no longer coming, it’s here,’ Geisha Williams, chief executive officer of PG&E, said in an email. ‘And we are living with it every day.’ Scientists tend to agree…But California’s biggest utility has an especially compelling reason to link the fires to the environment. State investigators have tied PG&E equipment, such as trees hitting power lines, to some of the blazes…It faces damage liabilities totaling as much as $17 billion, and possible financial ruin -- its stock is down about 37 percent since the fires -- unless Williams can convince California lawmakers that the company’s problem is, in fact, a climate change problem…” click here for more

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