A landmark report commissioned by the top U.S. derivatives regulator called climate change a "major risk" to the stability of the country's financial system and the broader economy.

Issued about a year after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission began exploring the impact that Wall Street could see from climate change, the report details how extreme weather events — from sprawling wildfires in California to worsening floods in Iowa — stand to create new risks for the U.S. financial system and exacerbate existing ones. The group in charge of the CFTC-commissioned report consisted of representatives from major financial institutions such as Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. and energy and agribusiness giants such as BP PLC and Bunge Ltd., among others, who voted unanimously for the report and its dozens of recommendations, which included pricing carbon.

"Climate change is already impacting or is anticipated to impact nearly every facet of the economy, including infrastructure, agriculture, residential and commercial property, as well as human health and labor productivity," the CFTC's Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee concluded in the report. "U.S. financial regulators must recognize that climate change poses serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system."

Wall Street has come to an awakening on climate change in recent years, with several major banks curbing their fossil-fuel lending practices and asset managers such as the world's biggest, BlackRock Inc., calling on the companies they invest in to incorporate stronger environmental, social and governance practices into their operations.

But U.S. financial regulators have only recently started to explore climate change as a serious issue. The report marks the first assessment of its kind that has been backed by a U.S. government agency, according to Rostin Behnam, one of two Democratic commissioners at the CFTC and the subcommittee's sponsor.

"As we've seen in the past few weeks alone, extreme weather events continue to sweep the nation from the severe wildfires of the West to the devastating Midwest derecho and damaging Gulf Coast hurricanes. This trend — which is increasingly becoming our new normal — will likely continue to worsen in frequency and intensity as a result of a changing climate," Behnam said in a statement. "Beyond their physical devastation and tragic loss of human life and livelihood, escalating weather events also pose significant challenges to our financial system and our ability to sustain long-term economic growth."

The subcommittee, which also included S&P Global Inc.'s Martina Cheung, the president of S&P Global Market Intelligence, issued 53 recommendations within its report that it says will help offset the risk that climate change poses to Wall Street and the American economy.

Topping the list was a price on carbon, which the group called "the single most important step to manage climate risk and drive the appropriate allocation of capital." Other recommendations included that the Financial Stability Oversight Council incorporate climate-related risks into its oversight functions, that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's guidance on climate risk disclosure from 2010 undergo a review and update and that regulators should begin explore climate risk stress testing for financial institutions.

"For a politically and sectorally diverse group of influential members to issue such a strong call for regulatory action is testament to just how important a financial issue climate change is, and to just how urgently we need leadership now," Ceres CEO and President Mindy Lubber, who served on the subcommittee, said in a statement.

S&P Global Inc. is the parent company of S&P Global Market Intelligence.