The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a proposal on May 29, 2026 to repeal its climate risk disclosure rules in full. The rules were drawn up under the Biden administration but were never once put into effect. Comments on the repeal proposal were taken for 60 days from June 3 to August 3, and the repeal must go through a review of the comments received and a vote by the commission before it is finalized.
Korea stands on the opposite side. The start date for mandatory sustainability disclosure has been set at 2028, and companies covered by it will report the relevant content in their business reports beginning with the 2027 fiscal year.
The obligation that starts running in Korea from 2026 is corporate governance report disclosure. Listed companies are covered. Statutory disclosure of sustainability information opens two years after that.
Reading the two timetables as one lumps the preparation period into the wrong shape.
The first group covered is KOSPI-listed companies with consolidated total assets of 10 trillion won or more. In 2029 the threshold comes down to companies with assets of 5 trillion won or more. The Financial Services Commission, in announcing its "plan for institutionalizing sustainability disclosure" in July 2026, named electrical and electronics, transport equipment and parts, finance, chemicals, metals, utilities and IT services as the industry groups. Sectors with a large share of exports and a wide scope for calculating emissions were placed in the front row.
The field test is under way. The Korea Accounting Institute selected nine companies representing each industry to take part in the pilot test for the KSSB (Korean Sustainability Disclosure Standards). Answers to the questionnaires submitted by the participating companies are being collected through mid-August.
The answers will be passed to the disclosure implementation support task force (TF) that opens in September, and the Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange will take part in those discussions. The review items hang on how far to draw the boundary of the value chain, by what method to calculate climate-related financial effects, and how to tally greenhouse gas emissions.
The output to be released within the year will not include a finished guide or model answers that companies can copy as they are. It takes the form of sharing the issues the participating companies ran into and the content of discussions among the relevant institutions.
Among the comment letters filed in the U.S. is capital that does not welcome the repeal. The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) objected, saying that if a common standard disappears, disclosure will scatter company by company and investors' information-gathering costs will rise. Vanguard, with 12 trillion dollars in assets under management, said disclosure that imposes excessive burdens should be avoided, while stating that standardized and comparable disclosure of material climate risks has value.
Norway's sovereign wealth fund put forward an alternative of fixing the scope of application and the cost issues instead of a full repeal, leaving a minimum standard for financially material disclosure. The Business Roundtable, a body of chief executives of some 200 large companies, and the American Petroleum Institute supported the repeal.
While deregulation is being discussed inside the U.S., costs outside its borders are moving the other way. The EU's CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) took effect in 2024 and its grace period has ended, so a real carbon cost attaches to exports to the EU from 2026. The first sectors covered are steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer, hydrogen and electricity.
The carbon market calendar is set as well. The 31st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP31) will be held in Türkiye in November 2026, with the activation of carbon markets on the agenda as a main item. Türkiye, Ghana and Luxembourg have newly joined the Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets (CGCM), bringing participating countries including the United Kingdom, Kenya and Singapore to 14.
The final handling of the SEC repeal proposal rests on a commission vote. The U.S. law firm Duane Morris projected that it is likely to be wrapped up in late 2026 or early 2027, though that is the firm's forecast. Even if the repeal is finalized, the application of the EU CBAM and Korea's statutory disclosure timetable remain as they are.
The next step begins in September. The questionnaire answers collected by the Korea Accounting Institute will be passed to discussions where the Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange sit together, and the conclusions will be released at the end of the year. Four and a half months remain until the 2027 fiscal year begins.
