Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary picked John Morton to be the department’s first climate counsellor drawing criticism from environmental activists who have been urging the Biden administration to assume a harder stand against climate change and Wall Street companies that finance producers of fossil fuels.  

“By choosing someone with no regulatory track record, the Biden administration looks to have stumbled at the first hurdle,” said Jason Opeña Disterhoft. Opeña is a senior campaigner with Rainforest Action Network. 

He added, “Stopping U.S. banks, insurers and asset managers from fueling climate risk will require decisive use of every available regulatory tool and the experience to outmaneuver Wall Street pushback.”

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Morton served as the senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council in the Obama administration and as a private equity investor. He was recently working as partner at a climate focusing investment firm Pollination, reported Politico.

Several activists had been urging the Treasury department to select Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was the former Treasury deputy secretary and Fed governor. Raskin has been asking for financial firms’ activities related to the climate to be more regulated. 

The Treasury department’s climate counsellor position of the climate hub will play an integral role in its work to battle climate change. 

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Yellen said on Monday, “Climate change presents new challenges and opportunities for the U.S. economy. The steep consequences of our actions demand that the Treasury Department make climate change a top priority.”

Morton will directly report to Yellen. 

The department also announced the launch of its new  “climate hub,” established by Yellen to coordinate all climate-focused work across the agency. Divisions in charge of international affairs, domestic finance and tax policy will be included in this.