Initially, these employees could of course be recruited from the existing national supervisors. Also the staff of the EOFS would have to cooperate with the national supervisors. I also want to stress that the EOFS should be an independent agency. This independence is important to achieve a division of labor and power. It should not be part of the European Commission and not of the ECB. One possible solution is therefore that EOFS is established directly by the EU countries and with an obligation to report to the European Parliament. My proposal is therefore quite different from the existing CEBS-structure which is part of the Lamfalussy regulatory framework in the EU. Although some of the EOFS’s tasks would overlap with those of CEBS, the focus is different. CEBS’s main tasks are to advice the EU-Commission, to enhance supervisory co-operation and to contribute to convergence of Member States' supervisory practices. CEBS is therefore a regulator and not a supervisory agency. The EOFS would be much more of a supervisor with as main task to produce coherent assessments of the risks and vulnerabilities of cross-border banking groups. In my view and to start out with, the EOFS need not have formal powers, with the exception that it should have the right to require cross-border banks to submit information. Formal supervision could still rest with the national supervisors according to the existing home-host arrangements and potential sanctions be decided by the national supervisors. In this respect, the EOFS should be limited to suggesting actions to the national supervisors.

So the Task Force has set out how firms can comply more effectively with existing disclosure obligations, by disclosing their climate-related financial risks and opportunities in their mainstream financial reports. In turn, this should ensure that consideration of climate-related financial risk, and opportunities, is properly embedded within, and subject to, firms’ corporate governance and risk management. Reporting on these risks cannot remain a niche activity. Decision-useful, actionable information  The disclosure recommendations deliver actionable information that will be useful in decision making. In particular, they focus on four areas critical to how real-world businesses operate: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics. 4  See OECD (2015), “Climate Change Disclosure in G20 countries”. 4  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/default.aspx  4  The expectation is that qualitative and narrative disclosures will be complemented with quantitative ones as is the case for other disclosures made in financial statements. These are grouped into the categories of revenues, expenditures, assets and liabilities and capital. More specifically, all firms, from energy giants through to consumer goods producers, are encouraged to disclose their:  -  direct carbon emissions plus those from their energy consumption, in a consistent manner (i.e. scope 1 and 2), complemented by any emission reduction targets that companies may set for themselves. -  these can be supplemented, where judged appropriate, with upstream and downstream (i.e. scope 3) emissions  At the same time, the Task Force has set out sector-specific guidance for those sectors with the biggest carbon footprints and exposures.