Does climate change surprise the profitability of energy firms? Empirical evidence from China

The energy sector matters the sustainable development directly and is sensitive to climate change. A few empirical studies concentrate on how climate change influences firm performance. Climate change brings higher production costs and lower efficiency on the supply side and leads to beneficial sale performance and improves profit. However, it is ambiguous to the relationship of supply–demand and revenue-cost levels, and their change is not consistent. Using panel data of 99 China-listed firms active in the energy sector over the period 2000–2020, this study aims to identify the causal relation between climate change and the profitability of energy firms while controlling for firm-specific and energy market-related factors. The quantile regression results show that temperature deviation (TDEV) positively impacts the profitability of energy firms, and this impact varies at different quantiles of the profitability distribution. These findings remain unchanged by four robustness checks. Moreover, mechanism results indicate that revenue and cost have different interaction effects on the causal relation. The findings of this study can provide forward-thinking expectations and assess climatic adaptation and risks, particularly inspired stakeholder engagements.