Climate change will be a significant factor in sovereign credit ratings and is already putting them under downward pressure, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) warned on Thursday. In a new report, S&P argued that climate change – and particularly global warming – will hit countries’ economic growth rates, their external performance and public finances. “Climate change is likely to be one of the global mega-trends impacting sovereign creditworthiness, in most cases negatively,” it said in the report.