A coalition of interests, including investors are petitioning the Securities and Exchange Commission to force companies to come clean on pollution risks, reports MarketWatch.

Basically, the argument is that disclosing risks associated with climate change should be no different from disclosing any other risks that might affect a business's performance. And climate change, they say, could have a material impact on profits.

CFO.com reports that there are some accounting and disclosure rules that would require companies to be more forthcoming, like FASB rule FIN 47 which requires companies to show future environmental liabilities to investors.

"We need this because right now more than half of the S.& P. 500 are not disclosing their climate risk, which we would consider a material risk in this day and age,'' Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a coalition of environmental activists and investors, told the New York Times.