Climate Risk Podcast: Recent Episodes
GARP
Hello and welcome to GARP’s Climate Risk Podcast series, where we will be investigating how climate change is impacting the world of business and finance and what this means for risk management.
Through the course of this series we will be bringing you insights from those working at the cutting edge of climate change. We will be joined by regulators, business leaders and risk practitioners who will help us build up a holistic view of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses and explore how this might affect you in your day to day work.
Vanessa Havard-Williams OBE explores how the UK is building a credible transition finance market, from stronger policy and transition planning to public finance, insurance and investable projects.
Financing the transition to a low carbon economy is often presented as a question of capital: how much money is needed, where it should come from, and which technologies or projects should receive it.
But the reality is more complicated. Finance cannot drive the transition in isolation. Companies will only invest at scale where the economics make sense, investors still need an appropriate return, and government policy plays a crucial role in shaping whether transition opportunities are commercially viable.
There are also difficult questions around what credible transition finance actually looks like. How should financial institutions support high emitting companies as they decarbonise? How can they distinguish genuine transition from greenwashing? And how can new technologies and first of a kind projects overcome the barriers that often prevent private capital from flowing?
That's why this episode explores:
- What transition finance means, and why clear definitions and credible transition plans matter;
- Why effective real economy policy is essential if capital is to flow at the scale required;
- And how government, financial institutions, public finance and insurance can work together to remove barriers and support a whole economy transition.
Links from this Episode:
- Scaling Transition Finance: Findings of the Transition Finance Market Review: https://www.theglobalcity.uk/insights/scaling-transition-finance
- From Planetary Hazard to Financial Stability: Disentangling Climate Risk and Institutional Responsibility (Lisa Sachs Report): https://ccsi.columbia.edu/from-planetary-hazard-to-financial-stability-disentangling-climate-risk-and-institutional-responsibility/
- Investor Climate Action: What Finance Can and Can't Achieve (Tom Gosling Interview): https://www.garp.org/podcast/investor-climate-action-what-finance-can-and-cant-achieve
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker Vanessa Havard-Williams OBE is the Senior Independent Director of UK Export Finance and Chair of the UK Export Guarantee Advisory Council. She previously led Linklaters' global environmental and climate change practice, founded the firm's ESG practice, and co-led its Risk and Resilience and Crisis Management teams.
In 2024, Vanessa led the UK Government's Transition Finance Market Review. She now plays a leading role in the development of the UK's transition finance market, including as a member of the Transition Finance Council steering group and Chair of its working group on credibility and integrity.
Hear from celebrated journalist David Shukman on why climate change is no longer a future risk, how extreme weather is exposing weaknesses in the systems we rely on, and why human stories are often the most powerful way to communicate climate risk.
Climate risk is often discussed in terms of future scenarios, long-term projections, and abstract global targets. But for many people, the impacts are already here: in homes lost to wildfire, hospitals disrupted by extreme heat, transport systems buckling under rising temperatures, and supply chains exposed to droughts and other weather extremes.
That shift from future risk to present reality raises difficult questions for governments, businesses, and risk professionals. Are institutions prepared for the climate we now live in? Who is responsible when critical systems fail? And how do we communicate these risks in a way that cuts through technical jargon and reaches people at a human level?
That's why today's episode will explore:
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How extreme weather is already testing the systems we rely on;
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Why recent climate events, such as heatwaves and wildfires, reveal critical gaps in preparedness and accountability;
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And why human stories about the impacts of climate change might be the most powerful way to communicate the risks and galvanize action.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker
David Shukman is a celebrated journalist, author, and broadcaster who spent nearly four decades at the BBC, including nine years as its first Science Editor. During his career, he reported from around the world on major global issues, including conflict, science, environmental change, and climate risk.
Since leaving the BBC in 2021, David has worked as an independent writer, speaker, and commentator on climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable development. This work has culminated in the recent publication of his book, 'The Response: A Story of Fire and Flood in Britain's New World of Extremes'.
Matt Winning reflects on climate fatigue, corporate engagement, and what risk professionals can learn from the art of communicating difficult topics.
Climate change is often communicated through data, models, targets and warnings. But as important as those tools are, they do not always reach people emotionally, or bring them into the conversation in a way that feels human.
That raises an interesting question: can comedy help? Not by making light of the problem, but by making it more accessible, cutting through jargon, and creating space for people to engage with a subject that can otherwise feel overwhelming.
That's why today's episode will explore:
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How comedy can act as a gateway for people who might not otherwise engage with climate change;
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Why better communication matters for firms trying to build climate awareness and engagement across their teams;
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And what risk professionals can learn from comedy about clarity, honesty and staying true to their convictions.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker
Dr. Matt Winning is a stand-up comedian and Lecturer in Economics of Sustainability at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. Matt previously served as Head of Climate Research at Oxford Economics and has spent more than a decade researching climate policy, energy transitions, climate finance and sustainability.
He is also one of the world's leading climate comedians. He wrote the book Hot Mess: What on Earth Can We Do About Climate Change? and has performed many climate-focused comedy shows, including at COP28 and the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as appearing on many BBC radio and television programmes. Combining academic expertise with humour, Matt focuses on helping audiences engage with climate change in ways that are accessible, informative and entertaining.
Hear from Prof. Tom Gosling, Director of the Initiative in Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics (LSE), as we examine the limits of investor-led climate action, the realities of stewardship and engagement, and why finance may need a more pragmatic approach to the transition.
Over recent years, investors have been asked to play a central role in driving the net zero transition. Through targets, stewardship, portfolio commitments and engagement, the idea was that finance could help push the real economy towards decarbonization.
But what if that framing overstates what investors can realistically achieve? If real-world incentives are still misaligned, and if policy remains the primary driver of economic change, then investor climate action may need to become more focused, more realistic, and more honest about its limits.
That's why this episode will explore:
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Why the current model of investor climate action has run into difficulty, particularly around targets and portfolio emissions;
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What more effective stewardship might look like when it focuses on achievable, real-world impact rather than headline commitments;
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And why asset owners, asset managers and risk professionals may need to rethink their roles as climate risk becomes more politically contested and physically material.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker
Professor Tom Gosling is Director of the Initiative in Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics (LSE). He is also a member of the Financial Conduct Authority's Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee.
With more than 20 years' experience as a board adviser, including as a senior Partner at PwC where he established and led the firm's executive pay practice, he brings deep expertise across corporate governance, responsible investing, investor stewardship and sustainable finance.
Hear from Kingsmill Bond, Senior Energy Strategist at Ember, as we explore why renewables and electrification are reshaping the global energy system faster than many realise.
We talk a great deal on this podcast about the risks and the policy challenges of the climate transition. But if that transition is actually going to happen — and happen at the speed that the science demands — there is something that has to sit at its very centre. Not the frameworks, not the disclosure requirements, not the net zero targets. The actual physical transformation of how we generate and use energy. The growth of renewables. The electrification of the things we use every day: our cars, our heating, our industry. Without that, everything else is commentary.
So where do things actually stand? How fast is the transition really moving? What does the data tell us that the mainstream forecasts might have overlooked? And in a world of geopolitical turbulence, rising energy security concerns, and significant political headwinds, what are the barriers still standing between where we are and where we need to get to?
This episode attempts to answer those questions. We'll be covering:
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Why flows matter more than stocks — and what the data tells us about how fast the transition is really moving
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The geopolitical energy shocks of the 2020s, what makes them different from the 1970s, and why this time we actually have solutions
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And what all of this means practically for risk professionals trying to get ahead of the transition rather than simply react to it
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker
Kingsmill Bond is Senior Energy Strategist at Ember, an open data think tank that has been tracking the growth of renewable energy and its impact on the global electricity system.
Kingsmill spent years as a financial analyst and strategist at some of the world's leading investment banks before making the transition to energy. This has seen him working at Carbon Tracker and the Rocky Mountain Institute before his move to Ember.
Hear from Richard Flemmings, founder and CEO of Map Impact, as we explore why "dry perils" such as heat, drought and wildfire are emerging as critical climate risks for real estate and financial decision-making. When climate risks are discussed, the focus often falls on what we might call "wet perils": things like flooding, storms, and coastal erosion. These risks are well studied, widely modelled, and increasingly embedded in financial decision-making. But another category of hazards is emerging: "dry perils" such as heat stress, drought, and wildfire, which are often less visible, hard to quantify, and in many cases still underestimated. Understanding these risks requires looking closely at the landscape itself: how land is used, how heat is retained, and how nature can either amplify or mitigate climate hazards. And when you do that, some unexpected interactions between the built environment and a changing climate start to emerge. That's why this episode explores:
- Why dry perils have been underestimated, and why they are becoming increasingly important for financial risk management;
- How real-world case studies reveal unanticipated consequences of climate risk and adaptation decisions;
- And how nature-based solutions, from urban greening to landscape-scale interventions, can help build resilience across portfolios and communities.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
To see more of our resources on climate and nature risk, visit GARP's Risk Insights: https://www.garp.org/risk-insights
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker Richard Flemmings is founder and CEO of Map Impact, a climate and environmental risk analytics firm providing bottom-up analysis of dry-perils and biodiversity. With more than 20 years' experience applying satellite earth observation and geospatial technologies across government, engineering, and NGO clients, he specializes in translating environmental data into practical insights for housing, resilience building, and climate adaptation.
Hear from Søren Elbech, Chief Risk Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank, as we explore how development banks use risk to support countries facing climate and other systemic challenges.
When we think about risk in banking, the focus is often on managing exposures, pricing credit, allocating capital, and ensuring resilience. But what happens when the mission of a bank is not just to manage risk, but to actively take it on in order to improve lives?
In that context, risk becomes something to be deployed — carefully, deliberately, and often in parts of the world where private markets are unwilling or unable to go. This is the role that development banks are designed to play. And increasingly, it means engaging directly with systemic risks like climate change, which shape both economic stability and the resilience of communities.
That's why this episode explores:
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How a development bank's model differs fundamentally from a commercial bank, and how mechanisms like preferred creditor status enable lending in higher-risk environments;
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What it means to treat risk as an enabler;
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And how innovative financial structures, from debt-for-nature swaps to climate-linked bonds, can help countries build resilience to climate and other systemic risks.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker's Bio
Søren Elbech is Chief Risk Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), a mission-driven institution focused on improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean.
With more than 30 years' experience across global capital markets and development finance — including senior roles at J.P. Morgan and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — he brings deep expertise in both international finance and mission-led risk management.
Hear from Sian Williams, Chief Risk Officer at Triodos Bank UK, as we examine how values-led banking can generate positive impact for people, planet and the financial system.
When we think about sustainable finance, the conversation often revolves around targets, disclosures and voluntary alliances. But what happens when sustainability is not an add-on, but the foundation of a bank's entire business model?
If sustainability is the starting point, lending decisions inevitably look different, and more complex. Not everything can be reduced to a model. Challenging trade-offs between risk, return and impact emerge. And judgment, values and governance play a much larger role in determining which activities are financed, and which are not.
In this episode, we explore:
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The real-world positive impact that a mission-driven bank can generate for communities, climate and nature;
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How balancing risk, return and impact shapes lending decisions in practice, and what that means for the bank's governance and internal decision-making;
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And whether the model of values-led banking is truly scalable — or whether its greatest influence lies in demonstrating what is possible for the wider financial system.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Today's Speaker
Sian Williams is Chief Risk Officer at Triodos Bank UK, a mission-driven institution that seeks to balance profit with people and planet.
With more than 30 years' experience in finance, including senior risk and compliance roles at Lloyds Bank, and as a banking supervisor at the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority, she brings deep expertise across traditional banking, mission-driven finance and regulation.
Hear from Julie Calkins, Director of Sustainability Strategy at Generation Investment Management, as we explore how interconnected risks spanning climate, nature, inequality and AI challenge traditional approaches to risk and return.
In investing, we spend a lot of time debating alpha — what gives one portfolio an edge over another. But increasingly, the bigger question is about beta, and the underlying conditions that make any returns possible in the first place. And here we can think about a stable climate, nature as infrastructure and even social cohesion and functioning institutions.
Because when those foundations erode, risk stops looking like a set of isolated exposures, and starts to look like something deeper – perhaps systemic instability, cascading impacts, and rising uncertainty that no single firm can diversify away.
That's why in this episode we explore:
· Why some investors are starting to think more seriously about "protecting the beta", and what that means for portfolio risk and long-term resilience;
· How nature risk, climate risk, and inequality interact — with inequality not only as an outcome of shocks, but as a potential driver of fragility and political instability;
· And the tools that can help risk professionals make complex, interconnected risks more legible from scenario modelling to frameworks that build a shared language inside organisations.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker's Bio
Julie Calkins, Director of Sustainability Strategy at Generation Investment Management
Julie Calkins serves as the Director of Sustainability Strategy at Generation Investment Management since April 2022. Previously, Calkins operated as an Advisor for an independent consultancy firm, CDAX, managing projects for notable clients including the US Climate Alliance Partnership and OECD Global Science Forum from January 2017 to April 2022.
Prior roles include Head of Climate Risk and Adaptation at Climate-KIC, a Research and Policy Fellow at Wellcome Trust, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Leeds/National Centre for Atmospheric Science. Calkins has also worked as a Monitoring Scientist for NOAA and an Antarctic Scientist for the US Antarctic Program. Academic credentials include a PhD in Environmental Science and Health from the University of York and an MS in Geochemistry from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
With a background spanning environmental science, disaster risk, and global policy, Julie brings a rare systems-level perspective to sustainable investing.
Hear from Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson of the GARP Risk Institute as they look back on key learnings from the past year of the Climate Risk Podcast.
As we head into 2026, the GARP Climate Risk Podcast kicks off the new year with a retrospective on the past 12 months, reviewing the key themes and insights that emerged during 2025's podcasts.
After 6 years of hosting the podcast, this might be the most wide-ranging conversation so far – from how one should adjust probability of default for climate risk, to the risk factors that might lead to the collapse of society.
To make things a bit more manageable, this retrospective has been split into three main areas of focus:
- First, what did we learn about physical risks, both from nature loss and climate change?
- Second, what did we learn about the transition to net zero?
- And third, what lessons were there for firms – either in risk management or business more generally?
We also hear from our guests on advice they have specifically for risk professionals. To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links to featured episodes:
- Sebastian Leape - The CSRD Effect: How Regulation is Elevating Nature Risk
- Eva Zabey - Beyond Climate: A Risk Professionals' Guide to the Biodiversity COPs
- Prof. Aled Jones - Flawed Models, Fragile Systems: The Risks in Energy & Food Policy
- Dr. Levke Caesar - Nine Limits, Six Breached: The Planetary Boundaries Crisis Explained
- Alyssa Gilbert - How to Make an Impact: Secrets to Climate Startup Success
- Laurie Laybourn - Beyond 1.5°C: How to Think About Our New Climate Reality
- Stephanie Race - Why Food System Disruption Is the New Normal
- Rowan Douglas - Resilience and Retreat: What Insurability Tells Us About Climate Risk
- Dr. Ajay Gambhir - Navigating Systemic Risk in the Age of Polycrisis
- Hirotaka Hideshima - From Basel to Biodiversity: An Ex-Central Banker's Take on Nature Risk
- Prof. Tim Lenton OBE - Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis
- Judson Berkey - Embedding Nature Risk: Insights from a Senior Banking Professional
- Dr. Luke Kemp - Societal Collapse in a Warming World: A Risk Manager's Lens
Today's Speakers
Jo Paisley is President of the GARP Risk Institute, the thought leadership arm of GARP. Set up in early 2018, the Institute works across all risk disciplines, with Jo's focus to date on climate- and nature-related risk management and scenario analysis, stress testing and operational resilience.
Her career began at the Bank of England where she worked in a variety of roles across macroeconomics, statistics, supervision and risk. Her last role was as a Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialists Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority, where she was heavily involved in the design and execution of the UK's first concurrent stress test in 2014. She left the Bank in 2015 and joined HSBC as their Global Head of Stress Testing. She has also worked as an independent stress testing consultant, advising firms on how to get the most value out of stress testing.
Dr. Maxine Nelson is a Senior Vice President at the GARP Risk Institute, GARP's research and thought leadership arm, where she focusses on climate- and nature-related financial risk management.
She has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD about how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.
Hear from Dr. Luke Kemp of the Center for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, as we dive into the risk factors for societal collapse in both the past and future.
When risk professionals talk about systemic risk, we usually mean markets, institutions, and interconnected exposures. But zoom out far enough, and there's a bigger question underneath it all: what makes an entire society resilient – or vulnerable – to collapse?
That's why in this episode, we explore the history and future of societal collapse through a risk lens: looking at how complex systems fail, how multiple threats compound, and the early warning signs of collapse. We discuss:
· What societal collapse actually means in practice, and why it's rarely a single event, but a buildup of stresses and cascading failures;
· How inequality amplifies fragility, weakening trust, institutions, and the capacity to respond when shocks hit;
· And what a real-world "collapse risk dashboard" might look like for societies.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from the discussion:
- Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse - https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/321192/goliaths-curse-by-kemp-luke/9780241741238
Speaker's Bio
Dr. Luke Kemp, Research Affiliate, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge
Luke researches the end of the world. He is a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) at the University of Cambridge. He has advised and led foresight studies for multiple international organisations, including the WHO and Convention on Biological Diversity. His work has been covered by media outlets such as the BBC, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. He is the author of the bestselling book Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.
Hear from Judson Berkey, Managing Director in the Chief Sustainability Office at UBS, as we learn first-hand how banks are approaching nature risk.
Within finance, nature is usually treated as background: important, but invisible. However, that is beginning to change. New frameworks, regulations, and expectations are emerging worldwide, and many firms are starting to measure their impacts and dependencies on nature.
In this episode, we explore how that shift is happening from the perspective of someone inside one of the world's largest banks. We discuss:
- Which lessons from climate disclosure apply to nature, and which do not;
- Why some regulatory approaches to ESG-type topics are more effective than others; and
- The importance of not waiting for perfect data before taking action.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker's Bio
Judson Berkey, Managing Director, Chief Sustainability Office, UBS
Judson is a Managing Director in the Chief Sustainability Office at UBS based in Zurich where he has worked since 2003 on global risk, regulatory and compliance topics. He currently focuses on sustainable finance policy and regulation including engagement with policymakers and standard setters. He also leads UBS work on nature. He graduated from Harvard Law School and the University of Virginia and is on the board of ECOFACT. He currently chairs the Institute of International Finance Sustainable Finance Working Group and represents UBS on the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures and Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero Steering Group.
Hear from Prof. Tim Lenton OBE, as we explore the potential of positive tipping points in accelerating the transition to a net-zero economy.
What happens when the conversation about climate change shifts from avoiding disaster to unlocking positive change? Suddenly, it's not just about risk - it's about momentum. Because while some systems may be close to dangerous tipping points, others – like clean energy, electric transport, and sustainable food – are tipping in the right direction.
That's why in this episode, we explore how to accelerate those positive shifts, including:
· How smart policies can trigger widespread, self-reinforcing change across economies and societies;
· Why leveraging social norms and human behavior is just as critical as investing in technology;
· And what it takes to create the tipping points that move us toward a stable climate, not away from one.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP's Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today's discussion:
- Tim's previous podcast appearance - https://www.garp.org/podcast/complexities-climate-risk-cr-201102
- Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis - https://academic.oup.com/book/60007
- Global Tipping Points Report 2025 - https://global-tipping-points.org/
Speaker's Bio
Prof. Tim Lenton OBE, Founding Director, Global Systems Institute, and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science, University of Exeter
Tim is the founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science. He has more than 25 years research experience, focused on modelling of the biosphere, climate, biogeochemical cycles, and associated tipping points. Tim is renowned for his work identifying climate tipping points, which informed the setting of the 1.5C climate target, associated net zero targets, and nationally determined contributions.
Tim works with policymakers and businesses helping them assess the risks of climate change and nature loss and highlighting the opportunities for 'positive tipping points' that can accelerate change towards net zero. In 2023, Professor Lenton led a team of more than 200 people from over 90 organisations in 26 countries to produce an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society. The 'Global Tipping Points Report' produced in partnership with Bezos Earth Fund was published at COP28.
Hear from Hirotaka Hideshima, former central banker and member of the TNFD, as we explore the parallels between financial risk, nature risk and regulation.
What happens when a central banker steps into the world of nature risk? Well, they can see parallels between financial risk and nature risk that aren’t obvious to others. For example, just as the global financial crisis exposed systemic vulnerabilities in banking, nature loss poses systemic risks that today’s models and disclosures struggle to capture.
And although the Basel framework and the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) recommendations are very different, they do share one key underlying objective — that is, to internalize externalities that markets fail to price. In this episode, we explore what a 30-year career in financial regulation can tell us about nature risk, including:
- Why risk professionals must consider the long-term materiality of nature risk, even when short-term impacts may appear limited;
- Practical first steps for incorporating nature into credit risk processes and operational resilience planning; and
- The role of qualitative judgment when models cannot fully capture environmental externalities.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) homepage: https://tnfd.global/
- Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) homepage: https://www.bis.org/bcbs/index.htm
- World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risks Report 2025: https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2025/
Speaker’s Bio
Hirotaka Hideshima, Fellow, Global Intelligence & Sustainability Unit, Dai-ichi Life Holdings
Before joining Dai-ichi Life, Hirotaka served as Counsellor on Global Strategy to the President and Board of Directors at the Norinchukin Bank, where he became actively involved in the work of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
Hirotaka spent over 30 years at the Bank of Japan, where he represented the Bank on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, co-chaired the development of Basel III’s definition of regulatory capital, and helped design the G-SIB assessment framework.
Hear from Dr. Ajay Gambhir, Director of Systemic Risk Assessment at ASRA, as we reconsider systemic risk in an increasingly interconnected world.
When we think about climate risk, it’s easy to focus on individual threats - rising sea levels, extreme weather events, or biodiversity loss. But in reality, these risks are part of a larger, interconnected web of crises. Climate change interacts with geopolitical tensions, pandemics, food insecurity, and energy shocks, often creating feedback loops that can strain or even break the systems we depend on. That’s why in this episode, we explore the concept of the “polycrisis,” including:
· Why understanding the connections between risks is key to managing them;
· How a new systemic risk framework can reveal vulnerabilities across critical systems like food, energy, and health;
· And why addressing inequality is essential if we want to strengthen resilience and meet climate and sustainability goals.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- ASRA homepage: https://www.asranetwork.org/
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Alyssa Gilbert: https://www.garp.org/podcast/how-to-make-an-impact-secrets-to-climate-startup-success
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Erica Thompson: https://www.garp.org/podcast/flawed-models-fragile-systems-the-risks-in-energy-food-policy
- Mike Berners-Lee, A Climate of Truth: https://climateoftruth.co.uk/
- A systemic risk assessment methodological framework for the global polycrisis: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-62029-w
- Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: https://www.kateraworth.com/
- Cascade Institute homepage: https://cascadeinstitute.org/
Speaker’s Bio(s)
Dr. Ajay Gambhir, Director of Systemic Risk Assessment, ASRA
The Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment (ASRA) is an independent non-profit initiative that aims to mainstream systemic risk assessment in policy and decision-making. Ajay leads on ASRA's approach to assessing systemic risks, as well as identifying and curating supporting data, evidence and models.
In addition to this role, Ajay is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Imperial College London, where he previously worked on climate change mitigation, the energy transition and associated risks, leading a team on integrated assessment modelling of low-carbon development pathways.
In this special episode, revisit this conversation with Prof. Tim Benton, as we remind ourselves of the devastating potential of the tail risks from climate change.
Our regular listeners will know that we usually to take a break from the podcast in August. But every once in a while, in this fast-moving field of climate and sustainability, it’s helpful to pause and reflect on where we’ve been, what we’ve learned, and how far we’ve come.
That’s why we’re re-releasing this episode from the archives, and revisiting a conversation that’s just as relevant today - if not more so - than when it first aired in late 2021.
This conversation about the tail risks from climate change left a huge impression on us at the GARP Risk Institute. The framing of climate risk as non-linear, deeply complex, and capable of amplifying other risks from food insecurity to political instability, was enormously influential on the direction of this podcast.
Today, where the window for an orderly transition is rapidly narrowing, it’s all the more important that we remember the extent of the risks posed by climate change. This episode explores:
- Why the risks associated with even 2.0◦C warming are greater than you might think;
- How climate risks are transmitted through, and amplified by, our interconnected economy; and
- How risk professionals can best prepare for the complex and unpredictable risks of climate change.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from the discussion:
- Climate change risk assessment 2021: Chatham House’s research publication detailing the consequences and systemic cascading risks likely from climate change - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021
- UK Climate Risk Independent Assessment (CCRA3) Technical Report: The UK Climate Change Committee’s independent analysis of the risks and opportunities for the UK - https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-of-uk-climate-risk/
Speaker’s Bio
Tim Benton, Professor of Population Ecology, University of Leeds
Tim’s research spans food security, sustainability, climate change, ecology, and systemic and interacting risks. Formerly, he was a Distinguished Fellow and Research Director at Chatham House, Environment and Society Centre, working on range of projects about how environmental risks interact with human systems.
From 2011 to 2016, Tim was the ‘champion’ of the UK’s Global Food Security programme. He has also been a contributing author for the IPCC and has more than 150 published academic papers to his name.
Hear from Rowan Douglas CBE, CEO of Climate Risk and Resilience at Howden Group, as we explore the vital role of insurance in the climate transition.
When we talk about climate resilience, insurance often flies under the radar. But it’s one of the oldest and most powerful tools we have for managing risk: pooling resources, spreading losses, and crucially, sending signals about where risk is growing too great to bear.
That’s why in this episode, we explore the vital and evolving role of insurance in supporting climate resilience. We discuss:
- How insurance acts as both a safety net for businesses and communities, and a driver of risk reduction and adaptation;
- The concept of “insurability,” and what it reveals about our growing exposure to climate risk; and
- How these dynamics are playing out in the real world, through a case study of climate risks facing Europe’s agricultural sector.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Ex-CEO of Allianz Investment Management Günther Thallinger - “The math breaks down” quote: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/climate-risk-insurance-future-capitalism-g%C3%BCnther-thallinger-smw5f/
- GARP Natural Catastrophe Modelling Masterclass (for SCR® Certificate Holders): https://www.garp.org/scr/catastrophe-modeling-masterclass
- The Insurability Imperative: Using Insurance to Navigate the Climate Transition: https://www.howdengroup.com/uk-en/insurability-climate-report-2025
- Insurance and Risk Management Tools for Agriculture in the EU: https://www.howdengroupholdings.com/news/eu-agriculture-faces-28-billion-annual-average-loss-from-extreme-weather
- Video summary of Insurance and Risk Management Tools for Agriculture in the EU report: https://www.fi-compass.eu/videos/interviews/insurance-and-access-finance-farm-resilience-and-adaptation-eu
Speaker’s Bio
Rowan Douglas CBE, CEO Climate Risk and Resilience, Howden Group
Prior to joining Howden, Rowan held a number of senior roles at Willis Towers Watson, including as Head of their Climate and Resilience Hub, and also at Willis Re, where he was CEO of Global Analytics. Until recently, he was also Chair of the Operating Committee of the Insurance Development Forum, a role he began in 2015, which focused on driving resilience in communities, business, and public institutions through insurance.
Rowan holds a Bachelor’s in Geography from Durham University, and an MPhil in Geographical Sciences from the University of Bristol.
Hear from Georgina Grenon, Director of Environmental Excellence for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, as we explore what it truly means to put sustainability first.
Turning climate ambition into reality is a complicated process. Sustainability often requires systemic change, which is precisely why it can be so challenging. That’s why in this episode, we’re hoping to inspire and encourage our audience with the story of the greening of one of the largest and most watched events in the world: the Olympic and Paralympic Games. We explore:
- How clear targets and innovative procurement strategies helped deliver on ambitious climate goals;
- Why systems-thinking and good governance were critical to aligning decisions with long-term objectives;
- And what risk professionals can learn from this experience to apply in their own organizations, particularly around resilience, efficiency, and driving change at scale.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio
Georgina Grenon, Director of Environmental Excellence, Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games
Georgina has had a long and varied career in energy and sustainability across the public and private sectors. She began her career in oil and gas, before moving into renewable energy and innovation.
She worked at the French Ministry of Ecology and Energy, where she supported the development of renewable energy policies and markets. She later became a Director at ENGIE Group, a French multinational electric utility company, before joining the Organizing Committee of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2018.
Hear from Stephanie Race, Founder & CEO of Earth Analytics Group, as we dive into the connections between physical climate risk, the global food supply chain, and systemic financial risk.
As climate impacts intensify - from wildfires to water scarcity - these risks are no longer distant. They’re material, and they’re here to stay. This is most evident in our food system, where disrupted crop yields, shifting growing regions, and stressed supply chains are becoming the new normal.
That’s why in this episode, we explore the vital and often overlooked links between climate change, food systems, and financial risk, including:
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How biophysical shocks like drought, fire, and flooding are cascading through supply chains and challenging economic stability;
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Why nature-based solutions are key to building real-world resilience - not just for farmers, but for the financial system as a whole;
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And how risk professionals can lead the transition by rethinking how we value, insure, and invest in a changing world.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Earth Analytics Group homepage: https://www.earthanalyticsgroup.com/
- DEFRA Stewardship Schemes: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/countryside-stewardship-get-funding-to-protect-and-improve-the-land-you-manage
- USDA NRCS Stewardship Program: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs-initiatives/csp-conservation-stewardship-program
Speaker’s Bio
Stephanie Race, Founder & CEO, Earth Analytics Group
Earth Analytics Group is a global environmental informatics firm, helping businesses adapt by integrating nature into financial decision-making.
Stephanie is a business leader, entrepreneur and scientist with over 30 years’ experience transforming global food and agriculture supply chains, and restoring ecosystems to balance nature, people and markets.
She previously held a number of senior roles, including as Partner at Accenture, leading the Analytics Practice for Food, Consumer Products & Retail.
Hear from Laurie Laybourn, Executive Director of the Strategic Climate Risk Initiative, as we explore how climate risks change in a 1.5°C world.
As we look increasingly certain to breach 1.5 degrees of warming, we are entering an era defined not just by extreme weather and policy uncertainty, but also by cascading disruptions, systemic instability, and the potential for tipping points in both the environment and society. That’s why in this episode, we take a hard look at how our understanding of climate risk needs to evolve. We explore:
- Why traditional climate risk frameworks may be missing a third, critical dimension, namely derailment risk;
- How scenario planning can help institutions prepare for destabilizing futures;
- And what risk professionals can do to improve climate risk assessments and build real resilience in the face of escalating shocks.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports: https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/
- Strategic Climate Risk Initiative (SCRI) homepage: https://www.scri.org.uk/
Speaker’s Bio Laurie Laybourn, Executive Director of the Strategic Climate Risk Initiative
Laurie is an award-winning researcher, policy advisor, writer and strategist. He is also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and holds fellowships at the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter.
Hear from Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Innovation at the Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment, as we dive into the climate startup ecosystem.
Innovation can provide powerful responses to environmental risks, from AI tools predicting the spread of wildfires in real time, to seaweed-based packaging replacing plastic at mass scale. But in fact, innovation means more than just inventing new technologies – it also means changing the ways we do business today, and helping connect these solutions with the people who can best make use of them. That’s why in today’s episode, we’re diving into the climate innovation ecosystem. We explore:
- The challenges and opportunities for early-stage climate startups, from scaling to securing investment;
- How business model innovation is just as crucial as new technology in creating real-world impact; and
- What risk professionals can do to engage with, and support, climate innovators.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/
- Undaunted: https://undaunted-hq.org/
- Notpla - Sustainable Packaging Made from Seaweed: https://www.notpla.com/
Speaker’s Bio Alyssa Gilbert, Director of Innovation, Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London
Alyssa leads a team focused on developing research, innovations, and talent to address environmental challenges. Alyssa played a key role in setting up the COP26 Universities Network to tackle climate change. Previously, she worked in policy design and evaluation services at Ecofys, covering areas like emissions trading, carbon pricing, and climate finance. Alyssa has extensive experience working on environmental and climate change issues in various countries and has a background in journalism and research.
Hear from Dr. Levke Caeser of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as we dive into the planetary boundaries framework and the risks of overstepping the limits of earth systems.
Planetary boundaries are the biological and physical limits that define a “safe operating space” for humanity on Earth. But today, many of these limits – including those related to land, freshwater, climate, and biodiversity – have been dangerously exceeded. As a result, we’re now entering uncharted territory.
So in today’s episode, we’ll be exploring the consequences of breaching these limits, and how we might get ourselves back on track. We’ll discuss:
- The science and selection process behind the planetary boundaries framework;
- Why we have failed to govern these global risks; and
- What actions can now be taken to correct our course and mitigate the risks.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion
- Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK): https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/home
- PIK Planetary Boundaries Science Lab: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/institute/labs/pbscience
- Climate Tipping Points Explained: https://www.garp.org/risk-intelligence/sustainability-climate/climate-tipping-points-250106
Speaker’s Bio(s) Dr. Levke Caeser, Co-Lead for Planetary Boundaries Science, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Levke is a climate scientist specializing in Earth system dynamics and planetary boundaries science. Her work focuses on understanding the impacts of human activities on global systems, with a particular emphasis on ocean circulation, climate tipping points, and sustainability. Dr. Caesar is co-leading the Planetary Boundaries Science team (PBScience), contributing to advancing the representation of Earth's systems in global frameworks. She combines expertise in data analysis, interdisciplinary collaboration, and science communication to drive impactful research and foster innovative solutions for global environmental challenges.
Hear from Prof. Aled Jones, Director of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University, as we dive into the role of models in shaping policy, and particularly their weaknesses.
Models are not neutral – they reflect the assumptions, values, and agendas of those that create and use them. Using the energy system as an example, models can (and have been) used to protect the status quo. In part, this is because many of the models are based on the notions of ‘equilibrium’ and so they simply can’t cope with major structural changes, such as the current energy transition. But it can be difficult for policy makers to switch towards models that are arguably more suited to the job.
So, what can we do to supplement the models? One very effective approach is to adopt a structured process of expert elicitation, where we use the insights of experts to uncover vulnerabilities and risks. To bring it to life, we explore how this has worked in the case of the food system. We discuss:
- The role that models play in shaping energy policy, and how they can lead us astray;
- How expert judgment and insight can help address model blind spots; and
- Finally, what are the key lessons for risk professionals?
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Global Sustainability Institute homepage: https://www.aru.ac.uk/global-sustainability-institute-gsi
- Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, Planetary Solvency Report: https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2025/jan/16-jan-25-planetary-solvency-finding-our-balance-with-nature/
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Erica Thompson: https://www.garp.org/podcast/the-power-and-pitfalls-of-models-in-climate-risk-management
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Aled Jones, Director, Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University
Aled’s work in climate finance was recognised by California and he has received a key to the city of North Little Rock, USA. He is a Co-Investigator on the ESRC Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, the AHRC Debating Nature’s Value network, the Economics of Energy Innovation and System Transition project and leads the BBSRC Backcasting to Achieve Food Resilience in the UK project. He was lead author on the seminal report on resource constraints to the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 2013, was made an Honorary Fellow in 2018 and currently chairs their Biodiversity Working Party.
Hear from Eva Zabey, CEO of Business for Nature, as we dive into the complex landscape of environmental diplomacy, and the role of business in halting and reversing biodiversity loss.
We know that our economies depend on nature. But with biodiversity loss and climate change both putting pressure on ecosystems, businesses and financial institutions are facing increasing risks. In recognition of this, there is action on the policy front, and with global biodiversity agreements taking shape, the question isn’t whether firms should act – but how they can do so effectively.
That’s why in this episode, we dive into the role of business and finance in halting and reversing biodiversity loss, along with some practical steps firms can take to integrate nature into their strategies. We discuss:
- The evolving policy landscape, including key takeaways from recent biodiversity COPs;
- The challenges financial firms face in measuring their impacts and dependencies on nature; and
- The tools and frameworks that can help firms take action.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Business for Nature: https://www.businessfornature.org/
- Nigel Topping on the GARP Climate Risk Podcast: https://www.garp.org/podcast/the-cop28-survival-guide-how-it-works-and-what-to-expect
- Global Biodiversity Framework: https://www.cbd.int/gbf
- Science Based Targets Network (SBTN): https://sciencebasedtargets.org/about-us/sbtn
- Nature Action 100: https://www.natureaction100.org/
- Finance for Biodiversity Foundation: https://www.financeforbiodiversity.org/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Eva Zabey, CEO, Business for Nature
Eva leads Business for Nature, a global coalition aiming to unify the business voice to call for action to reverse nature loss and restore the planet’s vital natural systems on which economies, wellbeing and prosperity depend. Previously, Eva led multiple projects at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for 15 years, including leading work on natural, social and human capital measurement, valuation for business decision-making towards integrated performance management, and reporting for investors. She led the development of the Natural Capital Protocol on behalf of the Natural Capital Coalition, as well as the establishment of the new Social and Human Capital Coalition.
Eva holds a bachelor’s degree in Ecology from Imperial College London and a master’s degree in Environmental Management from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). In 2012, she completed a University of London on-line course on Environmental Valuation Techniques and delivered a TEDx Talk on valuing nature in business.
Hear from Sebastian Leape, CEO of Natcap, as we explore how regulation such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is pushing nature risk to the top of firms’ sustainability agendas.
At GARP, we’ve been benchmarking financial firms’ climate and nature risk management capabilities since 2019, and we see that nature is lagging climate risk by several years. But things are changing, and part of that change is driven by new regulations – such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive or CSRD – where firms are being asked to report on a range of sustainability issues in a lot more depth than they’re used to.
Given the complexity, this episode provides a deep dive into some of the challenges facing firms. We discuss:
- Why nature is lagging climate in both understanding and action;
- The key emerging nature-related regulations and how they fit together; and
- Some useful ways for firms to begin tackling these issues.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio(s) Sebastian Leape, CEO, Natcap
Seb leads the team at Natcap, a nature intelligence firm on a mission to embed nature into business decision making by helping companies measure, report and act on their nature related impacts and dependencies.
Seb’s career has been focused on trying to make our economic system more sustainable. He has worked as a sustainability consultant at McKinsey, helping businesses and governments define and embed climate and nature goals, and also as a policy advisor, teacher, and researcher.
Hear from Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson of the GARP Risk Institute as they look back on key learnings from the latest season of the Climate Risk Podcast.
As we head into 2025, the GARP Climate Risk Podcast kicks off the new year with a retrospective on the past 12 months, reviewing the key themes and insights that emerged during 2024.
From soil scientists to policymakers, financial experts to climate modelers, we’ve welcomed a diverse range of guests to share their expertise. This episode revisits some of the key learnings from these conversations and highlights the invaluable advice our guests have shared with risk professionals as we navigate the path to a net-zero and nature-positive future.
Today’s episode will delve into:
- Why we need to think about climate and nature together
- What we learned about the transition to net zero
- The potential global temperature increases we face
- The modelling underpinning all these insights
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio(s) Jo Paisley is President of the GARP Risk Institute, the thought leadership arm of GARP. Set up in early 2018, the Institute works across all risk disciplines, with Jo’s focus to date on climate risk management and scenario analysis, stress testing and operational resilience. Her career began at the Bank of England where she worked in a variety of roles across macroeconomics, statistics, supervision and risk. Her last role was as a Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialists Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority, where she was heavily involved in the design and execution of the UK’s first concurrent stress test in 2014. She left the Bank in 2015 and joined HSBC as their Global Head of Stress Testing. She has also worked as an independent stress testing consultant, advising firms on how to get the most value out of stress testing.
Dr. Maxine Nelson is a Senior Vice President at the GARP Risk Institute, GARP’s research and thought leadership arm, where she focusses on climate financial risk management. She has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD characterizing how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.
Hear from Prof. J. Doyne Farmer, Professor of Complex Systems Science at the University of Oxford, as we explore new modelling approaches designed to better capture the complex and chaotic nature of our climate and economy.
We spend a lot of time on this podcast covering the transition to a low carbon economy, which will be driven largely by policies and technological innovation. These policies tend to be based on insights from economics. And our view on the pace of innovation is often informed by expert judgement. But traditional economic models often oversimplify the world, leading to poor policy design. And we tend to underestimate the exponential rate of technological change, making us unduly pessimistic about the transition.
Today’s guest has thought a great deal about both these issues. That’s why in today’s episode we’ll be diving into the world of complexity economics and agent-based modelling, which can help us better navigate the risks and opportunities associated with the transition. We’ll discuss:
- How agent-based models are very well suited to modelling complex, non-linear systems, such as the economy;
- How past innovation cycles can provide invaluable insights on what we might expect to see in the transition; and
- What the models tell us about the appropriate speed of the transition to a net zero world.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/284357/making-sense-of-chaos-by-farmer-j-doyne/9780241201978
- Santa Fe Institute’s Office of Applied Complexity: https://www.santafe.edu/applied-complexity/office
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Simon Sharpe: https://www.garp.org/podcast/five-times-faster-cr-240321
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with David Stainforth: https://www.garp.org/podcast/predicting-climate-future-cr-241128
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. J. Doyne Farmer, Professor of Complex Systems Science, University of Oxford
J. Doyne Farmer is Baillie Gifford Professor of Complex Systems Science at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and Director of the Complexity Economics programme at the Institute for New Economic Thinking University of Oxford. He is also External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and Chief Scientist at Macrocosm.
His current research is in economics, including agent-based modelling, financial instability and technological progress. He was a founder of Prediction Company, a quantitative automated trading firm that was sold to UBS in 2006. His past research includes complex systems, dynamical systems theory, time series analysis and theoretical biology. His book, Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World, was published in 2024.
During the 1980s he was an Oppenheimer Fellow and the founder of the Complex Systems Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While a graduate student in the 1970s he built the first wearable digital computer, which was successfully used to predict the game of roulette.
Hear from Prof. David Stainforth of LSE’s Grantham Research Institute, as we explore the limitations of climate modelling and the implications for risk management.
There are some things in life that we can be virtually certain about: if one throws a ball into the air, it will fall back down. Similarly, scientists have evidence beyond reasonable doubt that atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased a lot in the recent past. But there are quite a lot of things that we don’t know with any confidence, giving rise to significant uncertainty when we try to forecast those things.
That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll be exploring why climate change is particularly hard to model and predict. We’ll discuss:
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The different types of modelling and models used for forecasting, and their relative strengths and limitations,
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The benefits of adopting a more multi-disciplinary approach to understanding and tackling climate change,
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And the critical need for science to examine climate change more through the lens of risk management.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio
Prof. David Stainforth, Professorial Research Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute, LSE
Dave Stainforth is Professorial Research Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and an Honorary Professor in the Physics Department at the University of Warwick.
Dave carries out research on climate science and its relationship with climate economics and policy. He focuses particularly on uncertainty analysis and on how academic assessments can better support decision-making in the context of climate change. His new book, Predicting Our Climate Future, has recently been published, and is the focus of today’s discussion.
Hear from Prof. Pete Smith of the University of Aberdeen, as we explore the overlap in the challenges from, and solutions to, climate change and biodiversity loss.
Climate change and biodiversity loss are often treated separately – in science, policy, and even risk management. But as the connections between these global crises come into sharper focus, it’s clear that understanding them together is essential for real progress.
In this episode, we break down those silos of climate and nature, exploring an integrated approach and how it might help us address these challenges simultaneously. We discuss:
- How climate and nature impact everything from our food systems to our economies, health and security;
- The work being done by intergovernmental bodies to connect these issues;
- And how this work can lead to positive outcomes for climate, nature and society.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IBPES): https://www.ipbes.net/
- IBPES’ upcoming Nexus report: https://www.ipbes.net/nexus
- The Joint IPCC-IBPES report on Biodiversity and Climate Change (2021): https://www.ipbes.net/events/ipbes-ipcc-co-sponsored-workshop-biodiversity-and-climate-change
- Soil: An Invisible Crisis and Massive Climate Opportunity: https://www.garp.org/podcast/soil-crisis-opportunity-cr-041323
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Pete Smith FRS, Professor of Soils and Global Change, University of Aberdeen
Pete is the Professor of Soils and Global Change at the Institute of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK), and is Science Director of the Scottish Climate Change Centre of Expertise (ClimateXChange). Since 1996, he has served as Convening Lead Author, Lead Author and Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He is a global ecosystem modeller with interests in soils, agriculture, food security, bioenergy, greenhouse gases, climate change, greenhouse gas removal technologies, and climate change impacts and mitigation. He was a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder (2008-2013), and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (since 2008), a Fellow of the Institute of Soil Scientists (since 2015), and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (since 2009). He was awarded the British Ecological Society Marsh Award for Climate Change Research in 2014, and the European Geophysical Union Duchaufour Medal for ‘distinguished contributions to soil science’ in 2017.
Hear from Gordon Bennett, Managing Director at ICE, as we dive into theory and practice of carbon pricing and its important role in driving the transition to net zero.
Carbon pricing is the poster child of market-based solutions to climate change. The principle is simple: by assigning a cost to greenhouse gas emissions, we incentivize polluters to emit less, and to do so in the most cost-effective way.
But there’s a significant gap between the theory and practice. Currently, only 24% of global emissions – about 12.8 gigatonnes – are covered by pricing mechanisms such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade. On top of that, just half a gigatonne was traded in voluntary markets last year. Clearly, there’s still a long way to go. In this episode, we explore the carbon pricing gap, including:
- Why it exists, what’s needed to close it;
- The integrity challenges facing voluntary carbon markets, and how to address them;
- And how central counterparties can help drive the transition by ensuring transparent, reliable pricing.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- The World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Dashboard: https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/
- Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA): https://www.icao.int/environmental-protection/CORSIA/Pages/default.aspx
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Simon Sharpe: https://www.garp.org/podcast/five-times-faster-cr-240321
- The Oxford Offsetting Principles: https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/research/oxford-offsetting-principles
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Mark Campanale: https://www.garp.org/podcast/net-zero-supply-side-issues-cr-220303
Speaker’s Bio(s) Gordon Bennett, Managing Director of Utility Markets and Global Head of Environmental Markets, ICE
Gordon has been Managing Director at Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) since February 2015. Mr. Bennett is responsible for the sales and business development of ICE’s global environmental portfolio, the world’s largest environmental marketplace.
He is a member of the Board of ICE Endex, ICE Futures Abu Dhabi, Spark Commodities and a member of the Strategic Advisory Board of BeZero Carbon. He contributes to a wide range of external environmental and energy market initiatives including a member of the Nature Based Solutions Taskforce of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, the Transition to Net Zero Working Group of the Climate Financial Risk Forum, the City of London VCM Steering Committee, the VCMI Stakeholder Forum, the Advisory Board of the University of Cambridge Energy Policy Research Group and was named Environmental Finance’s sustainable business leader of the year in 2022.
Prior to ICE, Gordon spent 12 years at the global energy broker, Spectron, joining as Group Financial Controller and latterly serving as Chief Executive Officer. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
Hear from three leading experts in natural catastrophe modeling, as we explore how climate change is causing the insurance industry to rethink their approach to modeling extreme weather.
In the previous episode, we discussed the challenges facing the insurance industry from climate change – so in this episode, we’re going to dive into some of the solutions.
Since natural catastrophe (Nat Cat) modeling was established in the late 1980s, the predictive power of their models has come from the statistical analysis of historical data. But as climate change continues to push the frequency and severity of extreme weather into uncharted territory, this approach begins to lose some of its potency.
In response to this, new ways of thinking about Nat Cat modeling and insurance have emerged, with a focus on better capturing the effects of the changing climate on extreme weather. In this episode, we’ll explore:
- The power of incorporating physics into the traditional Nat Cat modeling process;
- The recent explosion of earth system data and the role of machine learning in harnessing it; and
- How improved Nat Cat modelling can support innovative products, like parametric insurance, and what this means for closing the insurance gap.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Reask’s Tropical Cyclone Database: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/152/1/MWR-D-22-0317.1.xml
- Reask’s Tropical Cyclone Wind Model: https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/145/8/mwr-d-16-0429.1.xml?rskey=9h0SUA&result=2
- Reask’s Tropical Cyclone Rain Model: https://journals.ametsoc.org/search?f_0=author&q_0=Thomas+Loridan
Speaker’s Bio(s) Jamie Rodney, CEO, Reask
Jamie Rodney is the CEO of Reask, specializing in extreme weather risk modeling and forecasting. Jamie has over a decade of experience in applying advances in extreme weather analytics to the financial and reinsurance sectors. Jamie is dedicated to leveraging advanced technologies to enhance global climate risk understanding and support organizations in navigating complex climate challenges. Based in Zurich, he leads Reask’s pioneering vision in developing a new class of extreme weather risk measurement capabilities that do not exist today. Jamie holds a PhD in Mathematics from University College London.
Thomas Loridan, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer, Reask
Thomas Loridan is Co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Reask, where he leads the development of cutting-edge natural catastrophe models using machine learning to quantify global climate risk. Holding a PhD in Boundary Layer Meteorology from King’s College London (2011), Thomas has deep expertise in atmospheric sciences and computational modeling. His work includes the creation of advanced wind field models for tropical cyclones and the integration of high-resolution data into probabilistic frameworks.
David Schmid, Head of Global Data Product, Reask
David Schmid is the Global Head of Data Products at Reask, where he oversees the development of products for risk assessment, parametric insurance and early warning systems. With over 15 years of experience in natural catastrophe risk modelling and parametric insurance, David has held roles at Glacier Re, NewRe, and Munich Re Capital Partners, where he contributed to advancing risk assessment and pricing standards. At Reask, David remains committed to developing innovative solutions that address the evolving needs of policyholders, brokers, and risk carriers.
Hear from two leading experts, as we explore how insurance is adapting to climate change and the role of the industry beyond underwriting.
Insurance plays a critical role in protecting households and businesses from the impacts of climate change, and with physical risks on the rise, it will become ever more important. However, insurers have also been significantly impacted by these risks, with annual losses from natural catastrophes exceeding 100 billion dollars for four consecutive years.
The primary concern is that these physical risks eventually become uninsurable, as we are already seeing for example with wildfires in California, leaving communities without the very protection that they most need. In this episode, we explore how the insurance industry has and should respond to these challenges, including:
- How insurance modelling must evolve to better capture the physical risks from climate change;
- The role of insurers in helping clients and policymakers understand and prepare for physical climate risks; and
- Why adaptation is now a top priority for allowing insurance to be effective and help spread climate resilience across our society and economy.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio(s) Annemarie Büttner, Lead Climate Risk Solutions, Swiss Re
Annemarie leads on corporate climate risk solutions at Swiss Re, helping companies identify, assess, reduce, and report the impacts of climate change to their businesses. She has 10-years’ experience focused on consulting and insurance, working on a range of topics including renewables, natural catastrophes, and parametric insurance.
Swenja Surminski, Managing Director Climate and Sustainability, Marsh McLennan
Swenja is the managing director of climate and sustainability at Marsh McLennan, as well as a Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics. In her career as an academic, Swenja researched climate risk management and resilience strategies, with a focus on public policies, financial instruments and individual behaviour. She has also held several advisory roles with corporates, regulatory authorities and governments, including the Bank of England and the World Bank.
Hear from Emma Howard Boyd CBE, Chair of the London Climate Resilience Review, as we dive into the challenges of climate adaptation and what it means for our cities.
2023 was not only the warmest year on record, it also marked the warmest 10-year period on record. As we witness first-hand the impacts of a warming climate, including heatwaves, more intense precipitation and increased flooding, the case for building resilience against these risks becomes ever more important. This is particularly so in our cities, where the concentration of populations and economic activity make adaptation non-negotiable.
This episode’s guest has recently led a comprehensive review of the Climate Resilience of London, which takes stock of the city’s preparedness for climate impacts and makes a series of recommendations for how the city needs to bolster its efforts. In this episode, we explore:
- How cities are vulnerable to cascading and interconnected risks, which amplify the impacts of climate change;
- How a collaborative approach to learning and building resilience will be critical in the years ahead;
- And how adaptation and resilience need to be woven through our all our decision making, while paying particular attention to the most vulnerable communities
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Read the final report of the London Climate Resilience Review: https://www.london.gov.uk/programmes-strategies/environment-and-climate-change/climate-change/climate-adaptation/london-climate-resilience-review
- C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group: https://www.c40.org/
- Thames Estuary 2100 Group report directory: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/thames-estuary-2100-te2100
Speaker’s Bio(s) Emma Howard Boyd, Chair, London Climate Resilience Review
Emma has been the Chair of the London Climate Resilience Review, leading the delivery of its work since summer 2023. She has had an extensive career in financial services at the forefront of the climate change, environmental and sustainable finance agenda.
Emma is also currently Chair of ClientEarth and a Global Ambassador for Race to Zero and Race to Resilience, and outgoing Chair of the Green Finance Institute. She has been Chair of the Environment Agency and an ex-officio board member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2016 to 2022.
Emma serves on several boards and advisory committees which include The Major Projects Association, Climate Arc, and the European Climate Foundation. She was the UK Commissioner to the Global Commission on Adaptation from 2018 until its sunset in January 2021.
In this special episode, hear from Tony Rooke, Executive Director at Howden Group Holdings and Beth Gould Creller, GARP’s Sustainability & Climate Risk Program Lead, as they discuss the recent improvements to the SCR’s syllabus and learning experience.
Long-time listeners of the podcast will have noticed that we often mention GARP’s Sustainability & Climate Risk (SCR) Certificate. It’s a program that GARP launched in 2020, providing all the foundational knowledge you need to become a climate risk leader within your own firm.
This episode is a special one, as we bring you a conversation between Beth Gould Creller, who heads up GARP’s SCR team, and Tony Rooke, who alongside his role at Howden, is a member of the SCR Advisory Committee and long-time supporter of the program. You’ll learn about:
- The latest update to the SCR Curriculum, including new topics like nature risk and transition plans;
- The enhanced e-learning platform, including practical, hands-on modules;
- And testimonials from candidates on how the certificate has advanced their skills and careers.
The SCR certificate is not only an excellent opportunity to boost your knowledge, but it also connects you with a global community of climate risk experts, fostering collaboration and innovation. Register before 31st July to save USD $100. Follow this link to find out more: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio(s) Tony Rooke, Executive Director and Head of Transition Advisory, Howden Group Holdings
Tony is Executive Director in the Climate Risk and Resilience team at Howden, and head of climate transition advisory. He helps organisations plan and achieve their climate goals, to identify and manage climate risks, and then optimise returns from their transition investments.
Tony has over 25 years global experience in strategy advisory, risk management, disclosure and programme delivery, with over 18 years as a leader and expert in climate change, environment and sustainability issues affecting businesses and financial institutions. Prior to Howden, Tony was Head of Transition Finance and Transition Planning at the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Senior Director for Transition Risk at WTW, and Global Technical Director for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), the world’s largest environmental disclosure platform. He has contributed to regulatory, policy and industry work including transition planning and transition finance standards (the UK’s Transition Planning Taskforce and GFANZ), the reporting standards (EU EFRAG, CDSB, CDP, TCFD), and strategic use of models, pathways and scenarios (International Energy Agency (IEA), NGFS, MPP, CFRF, GFANZ).
Tony is a member of GARP and on Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) certification advisory committee. He is additionally a fellow of both the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and the Royal Society of Arts, Commerce and Manufacture (RSA).
Beth Gould Creller, Sustainability & Climate Risk Program Lead, GARP
Beth manages GARP's Sustainability and Climate Risk Program. Prior to joining GARP, she was a risk professional in the upstream oil and gas industry. Working across multiple continents, her energy career spanned enterprise risk management, internal audit, business controls, supply chain process improvement, and governance.
Hear from Lord Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, as we explore the shortcomings of nationally determined contributions and how they might be improved.
Nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, are a bit like transition plans for countries, in that they set out what a country plans to do in order to meet the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. However, NDCs are voluntary, and collectively they don’t currently have us on track to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees, let alone the more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees.
Today’s guest believes that this is a problem, as NDCs are failing to provide a clear direction for action. The less clarity there is about policy direction and ambition, the less likely markets will respond to policy signals to deliver the investment required for the transition. That’s why in this episode, we examine:
- What are the shortcomings in countries’ NDCs and how they can be addressed?
- Why NDCs don’t currently reflect the rapid technological progress that is already being made across sectors; and
- How geopolitics is influencing the transition and the challenges facing climate finance.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Energy Transitions Commission: https://www.energy-transitions.org/
- Credible Contributions: Bolder Plans for Higher Climate Ambition in the Next Round of NDCs: https://www.energy-transitions.org/publications/credible-contributions-bolder-plans-for-ndcs/
- Mission Possible: Reaching net-zero carbon emissions from harder-to-abate sectors: https://www.energy-transitions.org/publications/mission-possible/
- Climate Change Committee: https://www.theccc.org.uk/
- Just Capital: The Liberal Economy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5859117-just-capital
- The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/
- Finance for climate action: scaling up investment for climate and development: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/finance-for-climate-action-scaling-up-investment-for-climate-and-development/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Lord Adair Turner, Chair, Energy Transitions Commission
Lord Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2˚C while stimulating economic development and social progress.
Lord Turner has chaired several high-profile organizations, including at the Institute for New Economic Thinking, the UK’s Financial Services Authority, the Climate Change Committee, the Pensions Commission and the Low Pay Commission. He was also Director General of the Confederation of British Industry. He became a crossbench member of the House of Lords in 2006.
He is also a Trustee Emeritus of the British Museum, honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017.
Hear from Robin Millington, CEO of Planet Tracker, as we discuss how and why businesses should be thinking about their dependencies and impacts on nature.
Sustainability is a complex topic, and for a long time, climate has been at the heart of discussion. Other challenges like pollution and biodiversity loss have often been sidelined. Recently however, following the work of the TNFD and others, these issues have risen up the corporate agenda, within the wider context of our impact and dependency on nature.
Throughout her career, this guest has highlighted the importance of integrating nature into mainstream business. In this episode, we’ll explore:
- The urgent need to manage climate and nature risks holistically;
- How our failure to value natural capital correctly is pressurizing the global food system and other key sectors;
- And the role that financial markets have in creating a nature-positive future.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Planet Tracker homepage: https://planet-tracker.org/
- Carbon Tracker homepage: https://carbontracker.org/
- The Financial Markets Roadmap for Transforming the Global Food System: https://planet-tracker.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Financial-Markets-Roadmap-for-transforming-the-Global-Food-System.pdf
Speaker’s Bio Robin Millington, CEO, Planet Tracker
Having dedicated nearly three decades to environmental causes including climate, biodiversity/nature and wetlands/water, Robin is an experienced senior director with an extensive track record including as a Director with the European Climate Foundation, Founding Director of Wetlands International and Managing Director of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels. Previously she spent many years in the private sector both in consulting and in multinational work. She has an MBA from INSEAD and her BA from Stanford University.
She is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of the Capitals Coalition, was previously a member of the Supervisory Board of the Gold Standard Foundation and serves on various advisory committees.
Hear from Catherine Howarth OBE, CEO of ShareAction, as we dive into the world of shareholder activism and how it can be used to guide institutional investors towards sustainable behaviours.
Moving away from fossil fuels is unambiguously the most crucial step in the transition to a sustainable net-zero world. And yet, governments and institutional investors worldwide continue to heavily subsidise and invest in the fossil fuel industry. The longer we delay the transition, the greater the risks that we face. So, how can we break this cycle?
Today’s guest has been focused on this and other sustainability issues throughout her career. That’s why in this episode, we’ll be exploring her world of shareholder activism, discussing:
- The toolkit for influencing institutional investors, including naming and shaming the worst performers;
- The different challenges when engaging with banks, insurers, and asset managers;
- And how shareholder activism can go beyond climate to create a more sustainable future for us all.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- ShareAction’s homepage - https://shareaction.org/
- Living Wage Foundation’s homepage - https://www.livingwage.org.uk/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Catherine Howarth OBE, CEO of ShareAction
Catherine has been Chief Executive of ShareAction since July 2008. ShareAction is the leading civil society organisation in Europe promoting responsible investment, transparency and good governance by institutional investors. Catherine is a board member of the Scott Trust, owner of the Guardian Media Group, and a member of HM Treasury’s task force on asset management.
She was a Member Nominated Trustee of The Pensions Trust (the multi-employer pension scheme for the UK’s not-for-profit sector) for five years, where she served on the Investment Committee of this £7bn fund. In 2011, Catherine was named a ‘Rising Star of Corporate Governance’ by Yale University’s Millstein Center, and in 2014 she was recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014.
Catherine holds a First Class BA in Modern History from Oxford University and an MSc in Industrial Relations from the London School of Economics.
Hear from David Carlin, Head of Risk at the UNEP Finance Initiative, as we dive into their latest reports covering the climate risk tool landscape, the use of AI in disclosures, and 1.5 degree warming scenarios.
As the world’s leading authority on the environment, the United Nations Environment Programme (or UNEP), has a mission to inspire, inform, and enable nations and peoples to improve their quality of life, without compromising that of future generations. And, they recognise the critical role of the financial system in achieving this goal. Through UNEP FI – their Financial Initiative – they convene networks of banks, insurers and investors to help accelerate sustainable development, as well as manage the associated risks.
Today’s guest is an energetic part of this network, helping financial firms tackle issues such as climate scenario analysis, climate risk assessments, and navigating the world of sustainability regulation. In this episode, we’ll explore some key insights from his work, including:
· How the landscape of climate risk tools and analytics providers is changing, for example with the increased use of Machine learning and AI;
· The challenges of translating the science of climate change to actionable insights for financial practitioners.
· And our guests’ secrets for reaching 100,000 followers on LinkedIn to help drive awareness of these vitally important topics.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- UNEPFI homepage – https://www.unepfi.org/
- UNEPFI’s 2024 Climate Risk Landscape Report – https://www.unepfi.org/themes/climate-change/2024-climate-risk-landscape/
- David Carlin’s LinkedIn page - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-carlin7/
Speaker’s Bio David Carlin, Head of Risk, United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEPFI)
David and his team support financial actors across the world to develop best practices for managing environmental risks and identifying environmental opportunities.
Alongside his current role, David advises the Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) and is the founder of Cambium Global Solutions, which helps governments, corporations, and financial institutions address environmental challenges. Prior to his current role, David worked as a Principal in Finance, Risk, and Public Policy for Oliver Wyman.
Hear from George Marshall, Author of “Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change,” as we dive into the psychology of climate change.
If you follow this podcast, you probably already have a good understanding of the nature of climate change, the risks it poses and why we need to act decisively and with urgency. But many people don’t listen to the podcast, and even if they did, they might think it was a lot of nonsense. Depending on people’s worldview, values, and socio-cultural background, the same message can be interpreted in many ways. That’s why in today’s episode, we’re focusing on the psychology of climate change. We’ll be exploring questions such as:
· What is it about the human brain that makes it so hard for us to accept the reality of climate change and take steps to address it?
· How is it possible that, when presented with overwhelming evidence of climate change, even the evidence of our own eyes, we can still choose to ignore it?
· And given our biases and shortcomings, how can we still find effective ways to communicate the dangers of climate change to audiences that are typically closed off to receiving those messages?
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio George Marshall, Author and Climate Change Communication Expert
George is a consultant in the public communication of climate change, and the psychological obstacles to attitude and behaviour change. His key interest is the design of narratives that can build a consensus for climate action across the whole of society. His insights draw on hundreds of focus groups and structured interviews listening to people expressing their hopes, fears and doubts about climate change.
His book “Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change”, explores the social and psychological obstacles to climate action. It is currently on its seventh printing and was listed by Esquire as one of the ‘15 essential books on climate change.’
Hear from Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics at the UNFCCC Climate Champions, as we explore three key problems that are impeding the transition to net-zero and how to address them.
We know that reaching net zero emissions quickly enough to avoid the worst impacts of climate change will be very challenging. But are we making it even more difficult than it needs to be?
Today’s guest thinks so, particularly when it comes to climate science, economics, and climate diplomacy. That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll be looking at how we could make all three work more effectively. We’ll explore:
· How climate science must change in order to generate meaningful action within our political institutions;
· How economists became overly fixated on carbon pricing, while missing other policies that would be even more impactful in accelerating the transition to net zero;
· And how the current model of climate diplomacy could be altered to allow for faster net zero negotiations.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics, UNFCCC Climate Champions
Simon took up his current role in early 2022, having previously held several senior positions in the UK government, including as Deputy Director of the COP26 Unit, and as Head of Climate Change Strategy for both the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
In 2013-15, he created an international climate change risk assessment project, working with experts from the UK, USA, China, India, and other countries. In addition to influencing the understanding and assessment of climate change risk in its partner countries, its findings were extensively cited by the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary General. It also inspired new thinking in the academic community, with a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change using it to argue that ‘climate science needs to take risk assessment much more seriously’. More recently, he has worked with partners in the UK, China, India and Brazil to create the world’s first government-backed project to apply complexity economics to climate change. His paper on economic tipping points, ‘Upward-scaling tipping cascades to meet climate goals: plausible grounds for hope’, was the most downloaded paper in Climate Policy journal in 2021.
Simon has published influential reports and created ground-breaking international projects in climate change risk assessment, economics, and diplomacy. His recent book, “Five Times Faster,” draws from Simon’s ten years’ experience at the forefront of climate change policy and diplomacy.
Hear from Dr. Jakob Thomae, Project Director for the Inevitable Policy Response, as we discuss their latest forecast and what it means for the transition to net-zero.
Scenario analysis is the natural tool for anyone wanting to understand how climate-related risks might evolve over coming decades. The vast majority of climate scenarios, regardless of who produced them or what level of warming they predict, tend to report similar levels of physical risk over the next couple of decades or so. However, predictions about transition risk tend to be quite different between scenarios.
This episode focuses in on the transition, and in particular the extraordinary work being done by the Inevitable Policy Response (IPR) to figure out the most likely course of the transition to net zero. We’ll explore:
· The IPR’s surprisingly optimistic forecast, and they believe the world might look like by the end of the century;
· The methodology behind their forecast, and how it differs from the scenarios produced by other groups; and
· What this forecast means for risk and finance professionals.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- The Inevitable Policy Response: https://ipr.transitionmonitor.com/
- Theia Finance Labs (formerly known as the 2° Investing Initiative): https://theiafinance.org/
- Jakob’s first book, ‘The Kill Score: On the Trail of Our Ecological and Social Footprint’: https://rb.gy/ydnxvu
- Paris Agreement Capital Transition Assessment (PACTA): https://pacta.rmi.org/
- The International Energy Agency (IEA): https://www.iea.org/
- How Bad are Bananas? by Mike Berners-Lee: https://howbadarebananas.com/
- Jakob’s second book, ‘The Little Book of Big Risks: From Atomic Bombs to a Zombie Apocalypse’: https://rb.gy/8lk1no
Speaker’s Bio Dr. Jakob Thomae, Project Director, Inevitable Policy Response
Jakob Thomae is one of the leading global experts on sustainable finance and long-term risks. In June 2023, Jakob was appointed Project Director for the Inevitable Policy Response (IPR), a climate transition forecasting consortium commissioned by the Principles for Responsible Investment. The IPR helps investors navigate the risks and opportunities arising from climate policy acceleration, volatility and transition.
Jakob is the co-founder of Theia Finance Labs (formerly known as the 2° Investing Initiative) where he currently serves as Research Director. Jakob is also Professor in Practice at SOAS, University of London, where he teaches a Green Finance course. His recent book "The Kill Score” explores the impact of sustainability on human lives.
Jakob has served as advisor to central banks around the world including the Japanese Financial Services Agency, the Brazilian Central Bank, the Bank of Thailand, the Bank of England, the Bundesbank, the Dutch Central Bank, and EIOPA. He holds a PhD in Finance from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.
Hear from Thomas Vaassen, Co-Founder and CEO of Meridia, to learn how the EU Deforestation Directive is changing the nature of data required across supply chains.
Supply chains are becoming an ever-greater focus for risk professionals. Firms increasingly want to measure the carbon footprint of their suppliers, or better understand their resilience, in the face of increasingly severe weather shocks. We are also seeing legislation driving greater transparency, which hinges on our ability to get accurate data.
Although often taken for granted in the developed world, having good quality data on property rights is not a given in many parts of the world and this, in turn, makes analysis of complex and often remote components of supply chains very challenging.
That’s why today’s episode will focus on:
- How legislation, such as the European Deforestation regulation, is changing the data landscape for firms;
- The practical challenges for obtaining good quality property rights data in remote locations; and
- How the world of data might change over coming years, with advances in technology and data collection.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s bio Thomas Vaassen, Co-Founder and CEO of Meridia
Thomas is currently the CEO of Meridia, a data partner that focuses on traceability and transparency, living income, and regenerative agriculture. Prior to this role, he was the Founder and CTO of Meridia, where they provided affordable land documentation to smallholder farmers. Thomas also served as the Program Director of the Investment Ready Program NL, where he helped green ventures prepare for investment and growth. Thomas has a background in managing social and sustainable initiatives, as Managing Director of Impact Hub Amsterdam, and the Chairman of the Board for Impact Hub Association. Additionally, he co-founded Blik-Opener, an organization that offers career coaching and development programs. Thomas also has experience in consulting, as a Founding Partner of Realize!, a consulting company that specializes in organizing for fast growth.
Hear from Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson of the GARP Risk Institute as they look back on key learnings from the latest season of the Climate Risk Podcast.
As we head into 2024, Jo and Maxine look back at the past year of Climate Risk Podcasts, reviewing key learnings from our guests and discussing ongoing trends in climate risk management.
From academics to ambassadors, CEOs to entrepreneurs, we’ve upheld our promise to showcase a variety of different perspectives on climate risk and sustainability. This episode re-examines the rich knowledge that has been shared on the Climate Risk Podcast over the last 12 months, creating a narrative of climate and nature risk wisdom to guide our listeners through this fast-moving field.
So, today’s episode will explore:
- What we’ve learnt about the physical risks associated with climate change and nature loss;
- The key risks that arise in the transition to a net-zero world; and
- How financial firms are managing these risks.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
Links to featured episodes:
David Schimel and Pooja Khosla - Bridging the Gap between Climate Science and Risk Management
Dr. Erica Thompson - The Power and Pitfalls of Models in Climate Risk Management
Rohan Hamden - Why Extreme Climate Physical Risks Are Closer Than You Might Think
Mike Azlen - The Future of the Carbon Markets Explained for Risk Professionals
Dr. Nicola Ranger - Balancing Mitigation and Adaptation: Insights for the Financial Sector
Simon Zadek - TNFD and Beyond: An Introduction to Nature in Finance
Professor Jo Handelsman - Soil: An Invisible Crisis and Massive Climate Opportunity
Nigel Topping - The COP28 Survival Guide: How it Works and What to Expect
Jane Stevensen - License to Drill: What New Oil & Gas Extraction Means for the Energy Transition
Nicky Dee - From Startup to Sustainability: Innovating For The Climate Emergency
Natalia Dorfman - Powerful Risk Management: Insurance Foundations for High-Integrity Carbon Markets
Carys Taylor - How Film and Television Are Adapting to Climate Change
Chris Howland and Lars Popken - Embedding Climate Within Risk Management: A Practitioner’s Guide
Ron Dembo - Dealing with Uncertainty in Scenario Analysis: Stochastic vs. Deterministic Approaches
Also discussed in this episode:
GARP Whitepaper - Biodiversity Loss: An Introduction for Risk Professionals
Today’s Speakers Jo Paisley, President, GARP Risk Institute
Maxine Nelson, Ph.D, Senior Vice President, GARP Risk Institute
Hear from Dr. Erica Thompson, as we examine the modelling ecosystem and when we need to escape it to make real-world decisions.
Climate science – like many areas of our lives, such as economics or public health – is based upon models. These models are often used to justify certain courses of action, such as investments in climate mitigation or adaptation, or even lock downs during the pandemic.
But what makes a ‘good model’? Is it purely how well it forecasts? Or are there other aspects that we need to consider, such as reliability, complexity, and how well it deals with uncertainty? And who gets to decide how good a model is?
In this episode, we’ll take a closer look at these questions and explore some of the nuances of models, including:
· How to judge how good a model is,
· The vital importance of understanding the values which underpin models
· And how models have the power to shape the very future which they forecast.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Praise for Escape From Model Land: https://www.ericathompson.co.uk/books/
- IPCC Working Group III 2022 Mitigation of Climate Change report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGIII_SummaryForPolicymakers.pdf
- Yale’s William Nordhaus wins 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics: https://news.yale.edu/2018/10/08/yales-william-nordhaus-wins-2018-nobel-prize-economic-sciences
Speaker’s Bio Erica Thompson, Associate Professor of Modelling for Decision Making at UCL’s Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy
Erica’s book, Escape from Model Land: How Mathematical Models Can Lead Us Astray and What We Can Do About It, was published in December 2022 and was shortlisted for Best Maths Book of 2022 by Chaulkdust Magazine, a specialist magazine for mathematicians.
Erica moved into her current role in April 2023, where she investigates the appropriate use of mathematical modelling to support real-world decisions, from mathematical and statistical questions about methodologies of inference from models, to psycho-social questions about the formation of confidence and the role of expert judgement.
Erica is also a Fellow of the London Mathematical Laboratory, where she leads the research programme on Inference from Models, and is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Data Science Institute. Erica previously held a series of roles at the LSE’s Centre for the Analysis of Time Series, initially as a Senior Policy Fellow, and subsequently as Co-Director and Acting Director.
Erica holds a BA in Experimental and Theoretical Physics and a Master of Mathematics degree from Cambridge University. She completed her PhD in Physics at Imperial College London.
Hear from David Schimel and Pooja Khosla of Entelligent, as we explore the intersection of climate science and risk management.
For over 30 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, has reported on the future physical impacts of climate change, based on the best available science. But these predictions have tended to underplay the likelihood of extreme risks. This is in part because scientists have focused more on the centre of the distribution rather than the extremes, which is likely to have been in part a reaction against an increasingly politicised level of scrutiny.
However, for risk professionals, the tails of the distribution are of particular importance. They also need also to think about the nature of the transition, which will depend on a number of factors, such as technological improvements and policy changes. Here, we have also seen systematic errors – for example, just consider the errors in forecasting the cost of solar energy.
So in today’s episode, we’ll take a closer look at the balance of these errors on the physical and transition side. We’ll explore the intersection of climate science and risk management, including:
- How the politicization of climate change has shaped how climate scientists communicate its risks and opportunities.
- The challenge of translating climate science into actionable financial risk data; and
- How ignoring the less likely impacts of climate change can lead to greater losses and missed opportunities.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
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Entelligent homepage: https://www.entelligent.com/
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Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report: https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar4/
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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/
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Article: Do Two Climate Wrongs Make a Right? By David Schimel and Charles Miller: https://www.entelligent.com/news-and-perspective/do-two-climate-wrongs-make-a-right/
Speakers' Bios David Schimel, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board at Entelligent, and Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Dave is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Entelligent, and a Senior Research Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has a 30-plus-year career working in top research positions and leadership roles in carbon cycle climate interactions and global climate modelling. Dave was a Convening Lead Author for the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, for which it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. In 2012, he was named a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America.
Pooja Khosla, Chief Innovation Office, Entelligent
Pooja is the Chief Innovation Officer of Entelligent, and along with Dave, invented the company’s patented Smart Climate® technology. A data scientist and econometrician, Pooja’s 15-year career has focused on predictive modelling, microfinance, and the design of investment tools. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Colorado Boulder, and speaks and writes extensively on climate risk and investment.
Hear from Simon Zadek, Executive Director at NatureFinance and Senior Advisor to the TNFD, as we explore the growing intersection of nature and finance.
With the recent release of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures Framework (TNFD), the idea of nature risk is now in the spotlight for many finance professionals.
Even though some may have encountered elements of ‘nature’ in their work before, for example when looking at supply chain risk, it may not have been labelled as such. And with many just getting to grips with climate risk management, there is an open question around how to incorporate nature-related issues.
That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll take a closer look at the concept of nature in finance. We’ll reflect on:
- How it’s defined, and what risks it presents to our economies;
- What the TNFD framework covers and what this means for risk professionals; and
- The risks and opportunities that nature presents.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on nature and climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- NatureFinance homepage: https://www.naturefinance.net/
- Recommendations of the TNFD: https://tnfd.global/recommendations-of-the-tnfd/
- Taskforce on Nature Markets homepage: https://www.naturemarkets.net/
- EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM): https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en
- EU Regulation on deforestation-free products: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/forests/deforestation/regulation-deforestation-free-products_en
- Report - Making Nature Markets Work (Taskforce on Nature Markets): https://www.naturemarkets.net/publications/making-nature-markets-work-extended-report
- Report - Breaking the Environmental Crimes-Finance Connection (NatureFinance): https://www.naturefinance.net/resources-tools/breaking-the-environmental-crimes-finance-connection/
- Report - More for Less: Scaling Sustainability-linked Sovereign Debt (NatureFinance): https://www.naturefinance.net/resources-tools/more-for-less-scaling-sustainability-linked-sovereign-debt/
Speaker’s Bio Simon Zadek, Executive Director at NatureFinance and Senior Advisor to the TNFD
Simon currently holds a number of leadership roles, including Executive Director at NatureFinance, co-lead of the Taskforce on Nature Markets, and Senior Advisor to the TNFD, Chair of Finance for Biodiversity, and Director of Migrant Nation.
Simon has also previously held many senior roles within the UN, including as Head, Secretariat, UN Secretary General’s Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals, as Senior Advisor on Finance in the Executive Office of the Secretary General, and as Co-Director of UNEP's Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System.
In these roles, he co-Chaired China’s Green Finance Task Force, and led the Green Finance Study Group secretariat under the Chinese, German and Argentinian G20 Presidencies.
Prior to this, he was Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum and the Global Green Growth Institute, founder and CEO of the international think tank, AccountAbility and Development Director of the New Economics Foundation.
He was Visiting Professor at the Singapore Management University and the Copenhagen Business School, and has been a senior fellow at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management, Harvard`s Kennedy School of Government, and the University of Southern Africa, amongst others. He has worked with many corporations, governments and multi stakeholder initiatives on their sustainability and broader strategies, been a member of the International Advisory Board of Generation Investment Management, and has published extensively, including the award winning book, The Civil Corporation.
Hear from Nigel Topping, Former UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP26, as we set the scene for COP28 in Dubai.
The COP, or Conference of Parties, is the annual convention of the signatories of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This is where all the high-level decision-making around the global transition to net-zero occurs – as such, it’s an incredibly important event for stakeholders all around the world.
With the next one just around the corner, this episode will set the scene for COP28 in Dubai, explaining the inner workings of the COP and identifying the key issues up for discussion. We’ll explore:
- The successes and shortcomings of the COP mechanism, and how it squares up to the challenge of multilateral negotiations;
- The complex ecosystem of government, business, civil society and lobbying that has coalesced around the formal proceedings, and the challenges and opportunities that it brings;
- And the headline issues that will be faced (and hopefully resolved) over the course of COP28.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- UNFCCC High-Level Champions - https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/global-ambassadors/
- Our Episode with Sir Dieter Helm - https://www.garp.org/podcast/not-net-zero-cr-210708
- UNFCCC, Global Stocktake - https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake
- The Inevitable Policy Response - https://www.unpri.org/sustainability-issues/climate-change/inevitable-policy-response
- Institute and Faculty of Actuaries/University of Exeter, The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios - https://actuaries.org.uk/emperors-new-climate-scenarios
- Rocky Mountain Institute, X-Change: Electricity - https://rmi.org/insight/x-change-electricity/
Speaker’s Bio Nigel Topping, Global Ambassador with the UN Climate Change High-Level Champions
As one of the 14 Global Ambassadors, Nigel was selected by the UN to help accelerate the implementation of net-zero targets and climate adaptation. Until November 2022, Nigel was the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion from COP26 in Glasgow, having been appointed by the UK Prime Minister in January 2020.
Working alongside Egypt’s High-Level Champion for COP27, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin, Nigel helped strengthen collaboration and drive action from businesses, investors, organisations, cities, and regions on climate change, and coordinate this work with governments and Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Previously, Nigel was CEO of We Mean Business, a coalition of businesses working to accelerate the transition to a net-zero economy. Before that, he was Executive Director of the CDP, following an 18-year career in the private sector, having worked across the world in emerging markets and manufacturing. Nigel is also a non-executive director of the UK Infrastructure Bank, and is a member of the UK’s Climate Change Committee.
Hear from Ron Dembo, Founder and CEO of riskthinking.ai, as we apply stochastic thinking to the challenge of climate scenario analysis.
One of the most difficult aspects of managing climate risk is its inherent uncertainty. Because we can’t know with absolute confidence what our future climate, economy or society will look like, we therefore can’t know exactly when, where, or how intensely climate risks will manifest.
A technique commonly applied to this problem is scenario analysis. By building a picture of what the future might look like, firms can formulate risk management strategies appropriate for that scenario.
However, today’s guest believes we’re only scratching the surface of what scenario analysis can do for our financial institutions. In today’s episode, we’ll home in on the idea of stochastic scenario analysis; what it is, how it works, and what makes it different to the traditional approach to scenario analysis. We’ll explore:
· The difference between deterministic and stochastic scenario analysis;
· The advantages of using large sets of scenarios generated by expert judgment; and
· What stochastic scenario analysis means for risk professionals.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
· https://riskthinking.ai/
Speaker’s Bio Ron Dembo, Founder and CEO, riskthinking.ai
Ron is an academic, author, entrepreneur, and consultant to the some of the world’s largest corporations and banks. He has had a distinguished academic career as a professor at Yale University and as visiting professor at MIT. He is a Lifetime Fellow of The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, and has received numerous awards for his work in mathematical optimization, finance, and climate change.
Ron was previously the Founder and CEO of Algorithmics, an enterprise risk management software provider with over 70% of the world’s top 100 banks as clients. After Algorithmics was acquired by Fitch Group, Ron later founded riskthinking.ai, a company pioneering the use of stochastic analysis to accurately price climate risk into the financial markets.
Hear from Jane Stevensen of JS Global Advisory, as we examine the overall progress of the global energy transition.
We always knew that the transition to net-zero wasn’t going to be smooth. Political realities must be considered, especially during a period of increased concern over energy security. A good recent example of political backsliding is the UK government’s controversial decision to grant over a hundred new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, despite a legally binding commitment to reach net zero by 2050. Although the UK is not alone, there are some encouraging signs of progress in other policy domains. It’s a matter of where the balance lies.
That’s why in this episode, we explore some solutions needed to manage the risks during this uncertain transition, such as:
- Abandoning short-term thinking in favour of long-term strategies that align with our net-zero and socio-economic goals;
- Using ESG reporting frameworks as a tool for developing resilient business strategies, rather than as an annual chore; and
- Leveraging the information from reporting frameworks to ensure decision-makers are held accountable for their actions.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
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UK Government’s press release regarding the new North Sea oil and gas licenses – https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hundreds-of-new-north-sea-oil-and-gas-licences-to-boost-british-energy-independence-and-grow-the-economy-31-july-2023
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JS Global Advisory homepage - https://www.jsglobaladvisory.com/
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International Energy Agency’s Net-Zero by 2050 report - https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050
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Climate Change Committee’s letter to Rishi Sunak – https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-2023-progress-report-to-parliament-to-rt-hon-prime-minister/
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Top ten countries currently developing the most oil and gas fields - https://www.energymonitor.ai/industry/top-ten-countries-developing-the-most-oil-gas-fields/
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International Sustainability Standards Board’s inaugural standards - https://www.ifrs.org/news-and-events/news/2023/06/issb-issues-ifrs-s1-ifrs-s2/
Speaker’s Bio Jane Stevensen, Founding Partner, JS Global Advisory
Jane has over 20 years’ experience advising businesses on sustainability strategy and the implementation of TCFD, ISSB and other ESG reporting frameworks. Prior to founding JS Global Advisory, she held a number of senior positions, including leading Grant Thornton’s Sustainability practice, and as Managing Director of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board. She holds an MBA from INSEAD and is a graduate of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Hear from Bob Buhr of the Imperial College Business School, as we explore ways of organizing the risks from climate change.
A risk taxonomy is a key underpinning of enterprise risk management. Used by firms to create a common risk language, it underpins a range of activities, such as risk identification, risk appetite setting and risk horizon scanning. But when it comes to the risks arising from climate change, there has been a bit of a vacuum. Some firms have chosen to use ‘green’ taxonomies. But these were set up for a different purpose – that is to classify the sectoral investment opportunities from the transition to a net zero or ‘green’ economy.
That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll be looking at how firms can overcome this gap, by examining a taxonomy that has been set up specifically to classify potential firm-specific climate risks. We’ll explore:
- The challenges facing firms from a lack of suitable risk taxonomies;
- What the key categories within a climate risk taxonomy ought to be; and
- Why and how biodiversity loss and natural capital risks should be incorporated.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Bob’s latest book, “Climate Risks: An Investor's Field Guide to Identification and Assessment” - https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/Climate+Risks%3A+An+Investor%27s+Field+Guide+to+Identification+and+Assessment-p-9781394187355
- Eila Kreivi on the GARP Climate Risk Podcast – https://www.garp.org/podcast/eu-taxonomy-sustainable-finances-cr-220616
- UNEP FI’s annual climate adaptation gap reports – https://www.unep.org/resources/adaptation-gap-report-2022
- Jo Handelsman on the GARP Climate Risk Podcast – https://www.garp.org/podcast/soil-crisis-opportunity-cr-041323
- McKinsey’s report on natural capital - https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/nature-in-the-balance-what-companies-can-do-to-restore-natural-capital
Speaker’s Bio Bob Buhr, Honorary Research Fellow, Centre for Climate Finance and Investment, Imperial College Business School
Over a 30-year career, Bob has worked at major rating agencies, asset managers, hedge funds and banks, and was often cited as a top-ranked bond analyst in various investor polls. He has published ESG and climate-related reports and written on environmental risks for years and has engaged with a variety of NGOs on climate and natural capital-related issues. He is the author of Climate Risks: An Investor's Field Guide to Identification and Assessment. Bob holds a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College, and a Ph.D. from Brown University.
Hear from Rohan Hamden, Co-Founder and CEO of XDI, as we examine how climate-related impacts are exceeding our models and why the need for adaptation has never been greater.
Despite our best efforts to measure and model the physical risks from climate change, the impacts continue to outpace our expectations. Consequently, we are left dangerously unprepared for extreme weather events both now and in the future. This highlights the critical need for robust adaptation measures, as we move into decades of unprecedented physical risk. The recent wildfires in California and flooding in Europe serve as stark reminders of the risks that extreme events pose.
Although governments and financial institutions are gradually getting to grips with these issues, we’re still on the back-foot in the race against climate change, and swift action is needed to regain control over our transition to a resilient, net-zero society. That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll explore some of the major gaps in our global response to climate change, including:
- Why the physical risks from climate change continue to exceed our predictions;
- How adaptation planning is being undermined by conservative risk modelling and short-term thinking; and
- The dangers of normalizing extreme weather events, which are becoming all too frequent.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- XDI Homepage - https://xdi.systems/
- XDI Article: Uninsurable Future - https://xdi.systems/uninsurable-future/
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR6 Synthesis Report – https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/
- Tim Lenton on the GARP Climate Risk Podcast - https://www.garp.org/podcast/complexities-climate-risks-cr-201102
- Julie Pullen on the GARP Climate Risk Podcast - https://www.garp.org/podcast/ocean-climate-finances-cr-220505
Speaker’s Bio Rohan Hamden, Co-Founder and CEO of XDI: Cross Dependency Initiative
XDI, the Cross Dependency Initiative, is an international data and analytics organisation specialising in the modelling and analysis of asset level physical climate risk. In 2017, Rohan co-founded XDI with a vision of mainstreaming climate information into infrastructure and financial decision making.
Rohan began his career as a fire fighter before working in the Australian government for nearly 15 years. During that time Rohan held a number of sustainability and climate related roles, culminating in the directorship of the Climate Adaptation Program for South Australia, where he designed and led the implementation of the State’s multi-award-winning climate change adaptation program. Rohan has advised various state and national governments on their climate adaptation programs in Australia, Canada, the US and the UK.
Hear from Mike Azlen, Founder and CEO of Carbon Cap Management, as we explore the ever-changing carbon markets and the future of emissions trading.
The carbon markets can be very confusing. Between offsets, credits, permits, and allowances, it can be hard to understand the many ways emissions can be traded, as well as the different mechanisms for pricing them. Furthermore, as these markets and their participants mature, different strategies are emerging for how firms can transition to net-zero in a safe and responsible way.
In today’s episode, we’ll explain the fundamentals of the compliance and voluntary carbon markets, but also explore some key emerging trends, including:
· The proliferation of emissions trading schemes across the world;
· How firms are navigating the challenges of the voluntary carbon market; and
· The advent of carbon as a fully-fledged asset class.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
- Carbon Cap Management’s (CCM) World Carbon Fund - https://www.carbon-cap.com/world-carbon-fund
- CCM’s research paper - Carbon as an Emerging Asset Class - https://www.cfainstitute.org/-/media/documents/article/industry-research/climate-change-analyis.ashx#page=36
- CCM’s educational videos on carbon markets, carbon trading, and climate change - https://www.carbon-cap.com/educational-videos
- International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) ETS Map - https://icapcarbonaction.com/en/ets
- Climeworks’ direct air capture technology - https://climeworks.com/direct-air-capture
- JP Morgan’s recent purchase of carbon removal credits - https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/jpmorgan-chase-spend-200-mln-carbon-dioxide-removals-2023-05-23/
Speaker’s Bio Mike Azlen, Founder and CEO, Carbon Cap Management
Mike is a senior investment professional with 25 years of industry experience. After a 15-year career spanning two Canadian banks and several alternative asset management companies, Mike founded Frontier Investment Management in 2005 and grew the business to profitability before selling the business to a public company in 2013 and completing his earnout in 2016.
Mike formed Carbon Cap Management LLP in 2018 as an environmental asset manager focused on climate change and launched the World Carbon Fund in February 2020. The fund invests into multiple liquid and regulated carbon markets and aims to generate strong uncorrelated returns and a direct impact on carbon emissions. Carbon Cap’s mission is to raise awareness about climate change and to provide solutions directly related to the capping and reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.
Mike holds a Sloan Masters Degree in Leadership and Strategy from London Business School and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) and has completed the LSE’s Economics and Governance of Climate Change course. Mike is a regular speaker at investment conferences and has been a guest lecturer on the graduate degree programs at London Business School for more than 15 years.
Hear from Nicky Dee, Co-Founder of Carbon13, as we take a closer look at the climate startup ecosystem and how it’s changing the way we decarbonize.
Many sectors, especially hard-to-abate ones such as steel and cement, are failing to align with a 1.5-degree world and still require fundamental change to become viable in a low carbon economy. Recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we often turn to innovation as a way to find creative solutions to decarbonization challenges. Many entrepreneurs and innovators are turning their attention to climate and environmental issues, but given the scale and urgency of the challenges, more are always needed.
Building on what we learnt about startups in the previous episode of this podcast, this discussion will dive into the world of venture builders which specialize in incubating climate startups, harnessing the creative power of entrepreneurs to tackle the climate emergency. We explore some key aspects of climate venture building, including:
- The process of creating a startup;
- How to build a team of the right people; and
- How these startups can help catalyse the transition to net-zero.
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- Carbon13 – https://carbonthirteen.com/C
- Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership – https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/
- Entrepreneur First – https://www.joinef.com/
- Kita – carbon insurance– https://www.kita.earth/
- Kita CEO Natalia Dorfman on the Climate Risk Podcast - https://www.garp.org/podcast/powerful-risk-management-cr-050423
- Blue Methane – removing methane from water – https://www.bluemethane.com/
- Global Methane Pledge – https://www.globalmethanepledge.org/
- Naturebound – measuring and monitoring biodiversity - https://naturebound.ai/
- Preoptima – real-time carbon analysis for construction projects – https://www.preoptima.com/
- Biozeroc – carbon neutral construction materials – https://www.biozeroc.com/
Speaker’s Bio Nicky Dee, Co-Founder and Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer at Carbon13
Nicky has over 20 years’ experience engaging with startups and a variety of stakeholders to promote sustainability. She co-founded Carbon13 to build and invest in companies to address the climate emergency. Over the last two years, this has included 46 pre-seed investments in cutting-edge net zero startups, including Kita, who’s CEO Natalia Dorfman featured in the previous episode of this podcast.
Nicky has pioneered a range of activities including innovation prizes, low carbon investments, corporate engagement mechanisms and startup ecosystems. She has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and is a Senior Associate with the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Hear from Natalia Dorfman, CEO & Co-Founder of Kita, as we explore the potential role of insurance in boosting the integrity of the voluntary carbon market.
The voluntary carbon market will likely be an important tool in the transition to net-zero. Even if the world stopped emitting today, enormous amounts of greenhouse gas would still need to be removed from the atmosphere to limit warming to 1.5oC, which can only be achieved by carbon removal at scale.
However, in its current state, the voluntary carbon market is both too small and too risky. To meet this challenge, it needs to grow to the size of the oil and gas industry by 2050, and significantly improve the transparency and reliability of its carbon credits, which is currently deterring investment.
This is where carbon insurance comes in. By protecting investors from the financial and reputational risks associated with carbon credits, this insurance may have a significant role to play in both scaling-up and de-risking the voluntary carbon market. We’ll investigate:
- The key barriers to investment facing the voluntary carbon market;
- The potential role for insurance in making this market more effective;
- And the benefits of a scaled-up and de-risked voluntary carbon market for fighting both climate change and biodiversity loss.
We'll also showcase the role of start-ups in this space, as they bring fresh perspectives, innovative products, and a willingness to take on big challenges to the issue of climate change.
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- Kita - https://www.kita.earth/
- The Earthshot Prize - https://earthshotprize.org/
- Carbon13 - https://carbonthirteen.com/
- Verra - https://verra.org/
- Gold Standard - https://www.goldstandard.org/
Speaker’s Bio Natalia Dorfman is the CEO and co-founder of Kita, a carbon insurance specialist. Kita’s purpose is accelerating investment in high quality carbon sequestration projects with insurance that reduces transaction risk and safeguards the performance of carbon purchases. Kita’s flagship insurance product is Carbon Purchase Protection Cover, protecting buyers of forward purchased carbon credits against under-delivery. In 2023, Kita was nominated for the Earthshot Prize in the category of Fix Our Climate.
Prior to founding Kita, Natalia spent 15 years as a business development and strategy specialist within the legal sector, including leading the Climate Risk practice strategy as Global Head of New Business at Clyde & Co LLP. Her experience with large corporations on their climate change-related challenges inspired her to help accelerate positive change through entrepreneurship. She was named among the “Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch” by NatWest and the Telegraph in November 2022.
Hear from Professor Jo Handelsman on the threats and opportunities that arise from soil – a vitally important resource that many of us take for granted and yet is at significant risk.
Humans depend on soil for 95% of global food production, yet it is eroding at unsustainable rates. Climate change is making this worse, for example as rainstorms are projected to become more frequent and intense with a warming planet. This poses severe risks to our ability to feed a growing population. Yet, soil is also the largest terrestrial repository for carbon, containing three times as much as the Earth’s atmosphere and four times as much as all plants combined, meaning that it has the potential to be a significant mitigant in the fight to stop to climate change.
Given its critical importance to humanity, we wanted to use this episode to dive into the threats and opportunities that arise from soil. We’ll discuss:
· Why and how soil is so vitally important for humanity;
· The scale of the risks from soil erosion and what can be done to stop this;
· And how the financial sector can respond to help address this ‘silent crisis’.
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- Wisconsin Institute for Discovery - https://wid.wisc.edu/
- White House Office of Science and Technology Policy - https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/
- A World Without Soil by Jo Handelsman - https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300271119/a-world-without-soil/
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Maggie Monast (Environmental Defense Fund) - https://www.garp.org/podcast/reduce-emission-resilience-cr-210617
Speaker’s Bio Dr Jo Handelsman is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also a Vilas Research Professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. Dr. Handelsman was appointed by President Barack Obama as the Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she served for three years until January 2017. She has been editor-in-chief of various academic journals and is the author of many books, including the co-author of the recently published book ‘A World Without Soil: the past, present and precarious future of the earth beneath our feet.’
She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama in 2011 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019.
Hear from Chris Howland and Lars Popken of Deutsche Bank, as we delve into the complexities of incorporating climate risk within financial institutions.
Measuring and managing the risks from climate change is often a challenge for many financial institutions, partly due to a lack of consistent data and analytical tools. As a result, many are still in the early stages of integrating climate within their day-to-day business and risk management processes. Beyond this, many have made net-zero commitments, which adds another layer of complexity to this challenge.
From their experience at Deutsche Bank, our guests will discuss the hurdles they’ve faced and share their expertise on how banks and other financial institutions can get to grips with climate risk. We'll cover a range of topics, including:
- Integrating climate into risk metrics and setting a climate risk appetite;
- Working with counterparties and preparing for a supervisory climate stress test; and
- The benefits of adopting a multidisciplinary approach to climate risk management.
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
- Deutsche Bank’s 2022 Non-Financial Report - https://investor-relations.db.com/files/documents/annual-reports/2023/Non-Financial-Report-2022.pdf
- Summary of the European Central Bank (ECB) 2022 Climate Risk Stress Test - https://www.bankingsupervision.europa.eu/ecb/pub/pdf/ssm.climate_stress_test_report.20220708~2e3cc0999f.en.pdf
- NGFS climate scenarios portal - https://www.ngfs.net/ngfs-scenarios-portal/
- IFRS 9 Financial Instruments - https://www.ifrs.org/issued-standards/list-of-standards/ifrs-9-financial-instruments/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Chris Howland, Head of Enterprise Risk Portfolio Management and ESG, Deutsche Bank
Chris has responsibility for portfolio risk strategies and appetite setting across multiple dimensions including sectoral and regional, the preparation of holistic risk reporting for senior management and emerging risk analysis and reviews. He is responsible for developing the Bank’s holistic ESG risk management frameworks, working in close coordination with other Risk and Business divisions, with a particular focus on the tools and methodologies for measuring, monitoring, and controlling climate risk.
Prior to joining Deutsche Bank in 2008 Chris worked for the Bank of England. He holds an MSc in Economics and Finance from the University of York and an MA in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh.
Lars Popken, Global Head of Risk Methodology, Deutsche Bank
Lars focusses on model development activities which relate to Credit Risk Rating Methodologies, Interest Rate Risk in the Banking Book as well as Economic Capital and Stresstesting for DB Group. In the US, a specific focus area is CCAR for credit risk as well as pre-provisioning net revenues.
Prior to (re)joining Deutsche Bank in 2009, Lars worked for two years at the strategic consultancy firm Oliver Wyman. Lars holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Hear from Dr. Nicola Ranger, Director of Climate and Environmental Analytics at the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI), as we discuss the importance of climate adaptation.
When discussing humanity’s response to climate change, we often draw a dividing line between the competing priorities of mitigation and adaptation. Simply put, mitigation measures are actions taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while adaptation measures are based on reducing our vulnerability to the effects of climate change.
Looking back over the past three years of this podcast, whilst we have had many discussions about various mitigation efforts, we have had comparatively few conversations about adaptation. This imbalance between mitigation and adaptation is one that can be found throughout the financial sector. Despite its clear importance, and the often urgent adaptation efforts taking place outside of the financial domain, it continues to receive relatively little attention. This episode asks:
- Why is this the case?
- What would an appropriate balance between the mitigation and adaptation look like?
- And how can the financial sector drive progress on adaptation efforts?
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
-
CGFI’s Publications - https://www.cgfi.ac.uk/category/publications/
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Global Resilience Index Initiative - https://www.cgfi.ac.uk/2022/11/grii-launch-blog/
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Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) - https://tnfd.global/about/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Dr. Nicola Ranger, Director, Climate and Environmental Analytics at the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI)
Nicola is currently Director of Climate and Environmental Analytics at the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment (CGFI), a national centre established to accelerate the adoption and use of climate and environmental data and analytics by financial institutions internationally.
She works at the intersection of science, risk analytics, finance, economics and policy and has almost two decades of experience in climate change, development, sustainable finance and crisis risk financing.
Before joining CGFI in 2021, Nicola has held senior roles spanning public policy, development finance, academia and within industry. She has also authored more than 30 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, and contributed to major reports including the UK National Climate Change Risk Assessment, the IPCC Special Report on Managing Extreme Events, and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.
Hear from Carys Taylor, Director of BAFTA’s albert programme, as we explore the issues of climate change and sustainability through the lens of film and television.
The film and television sector may not have the biggest carbon footprint, but it still has an important role to play in the transition to net-zero. With 70% of the global population owning a TV, the film and television industry can have a significant influence on public debate.
Moreover, changing demographics and technology are pushing the industry to consider the viewing habits and preferences of a younger, more climate-conscious generation. That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll take a closer look at the challenges and opportunities facing this sector, including:
- The decarbonization of the $200bn per year content production industry,
- How it is adapting to changes in the way we watch and consume content,
- And the challenge of using its influence responsibly.
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Center: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com Links from today’s discussion:
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albert’s homepage - https://wearealbert.org/
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albert’s carbon calculator and production certification - https://wearealbert.org/carbon-calculator-and-production-certification/
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[Contains spoilers for HBO’s Succession] Succession’s plot twist prompts surge of interest in leaving money in wills to Greenpeace - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/27/successions-plot-twist-prompts-thousands-to-leave-money-to-greenpeace-in-their-wills
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[Contains spoilers for 1917] The albert certified production of 1917 - https://wearealbert.org/2020/01/10/how-big-budget-film-1917-achieved-certification/
Speaker’s Bio(s) Carys Taylor, Director of albert
Carys Taylor is the Director of albert, the home of sustainability for the TV and film industry. Prior to taking up the role, Carys was at National Grid where she worked on solutions to decarbonize transport, the biggest contributor to UK carbon emissions. She is no stranger to the TV industry however, having also worked at BBC Studios as an advisor to Tim Davie, advocating for the UK’s creative sector.
Hear from Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson of the GARP Risk Institute as they look back on key learnings from the latest season of the Climate Risk Podcast.
As we head into 2023, Maxine and Jo once again join forces to review the latest season of Climate Risk Podcasts, gleaning key insights from each guest and discussing ongoing trends in climate risk management.
From scientists to CEOs, asset owners to archaeologists, we’ve upheld our promise to showcase a variety of different perspectives on climate risk and sustainability. This episode re-examines the rich knowledge that has been shared on the Climate Risk Podcast over the last 12 months, creating a narrative of climate risk wisdom to guide our listeners through this fast-moving field.
In today’s episode, we will discuss:
- What we’ve learnt about risk, vulnerability, and exposure;
- How well the financial sector is supporting the transition to a net-zero world;
- And what advice our guests offered to risk and finance professionals.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Andy Smith and Matt Jones - 30 Years of Catastrophe Modelling: Lessons for Risk Professionals
- Julie Pullen - The Oceans & Climate Explained (and Why it Matters to Finance)
- Kevin Dooley - Supply Chains: Why Sustainability is the Best Form of Risk Management
- David Victor and Danny Cullenward - How Politics Shapes Climate Policy: Insights for Risk Professionals
- Emily Shuckburgh - Data, AI, and Innovation: Insights from the Frontiers of Climate Science
- Brian Fagan - 30,000 Years in 30 Minutes: Climate Risk from an Archaeologist’s Perspective
- Bruce Usher - Investing in the Era of Climate Change
- Sean Kidney - The Green Bond Market Explained (And Why Investors Do Need to Worry About Climate Risk)
- Alan Smith - Culture and Capability: An Asset Owner’s Guide to Net Zero
- Eila Kreivi - EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance: Everything You Wanted to Know, But Were Too Afraid to Ask
- Mark Campanale - Achieving Net-Zero: Reframing Climate Change as a Supply Side Issue
- William McDonnell - The "Net" of "Net-Zero": Making Voluntary Carbon Markets Work and Christmas Climate Book Club Special
Speaker’s Bio(s) Jo Paisley, President, GARP Risk Institute
Jo has worked on a variety of risk areas at GRI, including stress testing, operational resilience, model risk management and climate risk. Her career prior to joining GARP spanned public and private sectors, including working as the Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialist Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority and as Global Head of Stress Testing at HSBC. Maxine Nelson, Senior Vice President, GARP Risk Institute
Maxine currently focuses on climate risk management. Previous roles have included operational risk modelling at NAB, leading KMPG London’s credit risk team, senior consultant at Oliver Wyman, responsibility for counterparty credit risk at the UK Financial Services Authority, and Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC.
Hear from members of the UK’s Climate Financial Risk Forum, as we dive into their brand-new publications on climate litigation and physical risk.
Part 1 | Litigation Risk Underwriting Guide | 00:00:00–00:15:54
Part 2 | Physical Risk Underwriting Guide | 00:15.54–00:36:13
The Climate Financial Risk Forum (CFRF) was set up in 2019 by the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to build capacity and share best practice across industry and the regulators to advance the sector’s responses to the financial risks from climate change.
In this special episode, we discuss the CFRF’s Litigation Risk and Physical Risk Underwriting Guides, which are available from 9 December 2022. The guides focus on risks that are particularly pertinent to the insurance industry, but are highly relevant to many financial firms. The guests were all heavily involved in producing these publications, so they’ll be sharing their thoughts and insights as a compliment to the papers themselves.
For the litigation portion of this episode, we will discuss:
- Why climate litigation risk deserves special attention from insurers;
- How financial firms are reacting to the fast-changing litigation landscape; and
- Key recommendations for financial institutions trying to understand their exposure to this risk.
And for the physical risk portion, we will discuss:
- The distribution of physical risks globally relative to the distribution of global insurance;
- The challenges of modelling complex hazards from climate change; and
- The capabilities that financial firms can build and the strategies they can adopt to deal with highly uncertain risks.
Links from today’s discussion:
- CFRF’s Litigation Risk Underwriting Guide
- CFRF’s Physical Risk Underwriting Guide
- Other CFRF 2022 publications
- Results of the 2021 Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES)
- Nigel’s previous appearances on the Climate Risk Podcast and the Climate Risk Webcast
- Grantham Institute’s 2022 Global Climate Change Litigation Snapshot
- Geneva Association’s 2021 Global Report on Climate Litigation
- UN’s Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) homepage
Speaker’s Bios Nigel Brook, Partner, Clyde & Co.
Nigel has been a partner at Clyde & Co since 1985 and heads the firm's reinsurance team. An international insurance and reinsurance disputes specialist with over 30 years' experience, Nigel is considered by many to be one of the top insurance lawyers worldwide.
He leads Clyde & Co’s global campaign on Resilience and Climate Change Risk, building a body of know-how and raising awareness of climate-related legal duties and potential liabilities. He is a member of the Law, Regulation and Resilience Policies Working Group of the Insurance Development Forum – a public/private partnership seeking to optimise and extend the use of insurance and the industry's risk management capabilities to protect those most vulnerable to disasters. He co-authored the firm's 2018 Reports on Parametric Insurance and Inclusive Insurance – exploring the role of innovative risk transfer in closing the global protection gap – and has authored and edited Clyde & Co's 2018/19 series of reports on the rising tide of Climate Change liability and duties of care. Paul Barrett, Chief Risk Officer, AIG UK
Paul is Chief Risk Officer for AIG UK. He is also the designated ‘Senior Manager’ for Climate Change Risk. Paul reports jointly to the Board of AIG UK and Fabrice Brossart, CRO, GI International. Paul’s team is responsible for the Risk Governance, ORSA, Stress Testing, Risk Register, Risk Appetite & Limits and Operational Risk processes. Paul also works closely with the Group in helping to develop AIG’s Climate Strategy. Previously Paul was Assistant Director, Solvency II at the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Prior to that Paul worked in Policy at the Financial Services Authority. Shane Latchman, VP and Managing Director, Verisk
As a vice president and the managing director of Verisk’s Extreme Event Solutions team in London, Shane Latchman is involved in many of Verisk’s extreme event models and Touchstone initiatives, such as the integration of third-party data and models, expanding Verisk’s capabilities in marine and energy, climate change quantification, and the Next Generation Financial Module. He interacts frequently with rating agencies and regulators on topics such as stress tests, climate change, and the Solvency II directive on EU insurance regulation.
Shane joined Verisk after receiving his master’s degree in 2008. Shane sits on and collaborates with various industry working groups, committees, and boards, including Bank of England, Open Data Standards, Insurance Development Forum, and Cass Business School. He writes and speaks frequently on topics related to catastrophe risk and climate change. Joss Matthewman, Senior Director of Climate Change Product Management & Strategy, RMS
Joss rejoined RMS in 2020 as Senior Director of Climate Change Product Management. Prior to this Joss was Head of Catastrophe Exposure Management at Hiscox, responsible for natural catastrophe, war, terror and political violence exposure management and reporting across the group.
Before joining Hiscox, Joss spent seven years in model development at RMS where he worked on the North Atlantic Hurricane and Asia Typhoon models, before being appointed Head of Storm Surge Modelling. During this period Joss joined the PRA working group on climate change which he continues to engage with today. Prior to entering the insurance industry Joss obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics from UCL and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in climate science at the University of California, Irvine. His published areas of research include stratospheric sudden warmings, and the impact of sea-ice on global atmospheric teleconnections.
What climate books do you want for Christmas? Listen in to find out where to start on picking out those stocking fillers.
In this special episode, Jo reunites with William McDonnell to discuss their top picks of climate books across all genres, from climate science to politics and economics, covering fiction and non-fiction. Although its light-hearted, there’s a deadly serious point: given the urgency of the climate crisis, we need to educate ourselves on the nature of the problem and the solutions at hand. Books offer a wonderful opportunity to learn much more about the challenges we face to build up a holistic view of risks that we value so much at GARP.
With so many excellent books out there, we hope this episode offers a guide, whether it’s for expanding your own library of climate-related books or simply finding the perfect gift. And remember – as they say about dogs – a book is for life, not just for Christmas.
If you enjoyed this episode and would like to give us feedback, please let us know at climateriskpodcast@garp.com.
Books mentioned in today’s discussion (in broad categories) Understanding the problem
- Six Degrees: Our Future on A Hotter Planet – Mark Lynas
- The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future – David Wallace-Wells
- The Burning Question: We Can't Burn Half the World's Oil, Coal and Gas. So How Do We Quit? – Mike Berners-Lees and Duncan Clark
- There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years – Mike Berners-Lees
- The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene – Simon L. Lewis and Mark Maslin
- Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors – Brian M. Fagan and Nadia Durrani
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
- The Great Leveller: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century – Walter Scheidel
How did we get here?
- Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change – Nathaniel Rich
- Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity – James Hanson
- Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming – Erik M. Conway and Naomi Oreskes
- The New Climate War: The fight to take back our planet – Michael E. Mann
Climate economics
- Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist – Kate Raworth
- Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet – Tim Jackson
- Net Zero: How We Stop Causing Climate Change – Dieter Helm
- Measuring What Counts: The Global Movement for Well-Being – Joseph Stiglitz
Risk psychology
- Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired To Ignore Climate Change – George Marshall
- Thinking, Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Climate and nature fiction
- Oryx and Crake – Margaret Atwood
- The Ministry for the Future – Kim Stanley Robinson
- Green Earth – Kim Stanley Robinson
- The Overstory – Richard Powers
Communicating climate change
- Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World – Katherine Hayhoe
- The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World – Jeff Goodell
- Hot Mess: What on earth can we do about climate change? – Matt Winning
Climate solutions
- How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need – Bill Gates
- Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming – Paul Hawken
- Investing in the Era of Climate Change – Bruce Usher
- Making Climate Policy Work – David Victor and Danny Cullenward
- Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future – Elizabeth Kolbert
- The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World – Oliver Morton
Social challenges of climate change
- This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate – Naomi Klein
- On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal – Naomi Klein
- Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future – Mary Robinson
- Bonus: Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men – Caroline Criado Perez
Environment and biodiversity
- Wilding: The return of nature to a British farm – Isabella Tree
- The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History – Elizabeth Kolbert
- Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet – George Monbiot
- Green and Prosperous Land: A Blueprint for Rescuing the British Countryside – Dieter Helm
Looking forwards
- The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis – Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac
- The Climate Book – Greta Thunberg
Uplifting reads
- Humankind: A Human History – Rutger Bregman
- Humans: A Brief History of How We F* It All Up – Tom Phillips
Speaker’s Bio(s) William McDonnell, COO, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
William is COO for the ICVCM, the new global governance body to set and enforce threshold quality standards for the voluntary carbon market. Prior to that he had a 25-year career in financial services. Most recently he was Group Chief Risk Officer and member of the Group Executive Committee for RSA Insurance Group plc for 7 years, responsible for Risk, Assurance and Compliance groupwide. Prior to RSA he held roles at HSBC Investment Bank, Aviva, the UK Financial Services Authority and Deloitte.
William is a leading voice on climate risk in the financial sector, having served as a member of the ClimateWise Council and of the UK’s Climate Financial Risk Forum, and as chair of the Emerging Risks Initiative of leading global insurers, publishing a major climate study ‘The Heat is on – Insurability and Resilience in a Changing Climate’.
Hear from William McDonnell, COO of the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, as we discuss the role of carbon credits in the transition to net-zero, and what changes are needed to ensure that the voluntary market can function correctly.
Sign up for GARP’s 2022 Climate Risk Symposium here!
Part I: Nov 22, 1:00 - 2:30 pm GMT
Part II: Dec 1, 1:00 - 2:30 pm GMT
As firms’ climate ambitions steadily rise, many are looking towards carbon credits to help ease themselves into the transition to net-zero. According to the Ecosystem Marketplace, the global voluntary carbon market (VCM) has quadrupled in value since 2020.
However, not all carbon credits are created equal, and this is causing significant harm to the VCM’s integrity. Because the quality assurance of carbon credits relies on a patchwork of standards set by independent organizations, many are of poor quality and can even be net-carbon positive. This immaturity in the market has even allowed for such irrational practices as deliberately cutting down forests, only to sell their regrowth as offsets.
In this episode of the GARP Climate Risk Podcast, we’ll examine the voluntary carbon markets, exploring:
- The key differences between the mandatory and voluntary carbon markets;
- The challenge of scaling up the voluntary market whilst ensuring credit quality; and
- How the newly formed Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market plans to address it.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM) homepage
- GARP’s first Climate Risk webcast, featuring William – The Heat is On: A CRO’s Perspective on Climate Change
- CRO Forum’s Emerging Risk Initiative 2022 update
- Voluntary Carbon Market Integrity Initiative (VCMI) homepage
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) homepage
Speaker’s Bio(s) William McDonnell, COO, Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market
William is COO for the ICVCM, the new global governance body to set and enforce threshold quality standards for the voluntary carbon market. Prior to that he had a 25-year career in financial services. Most recently he was Group Chief Risk Officer and member of the Group Executive Committee for RSA Insurance Group plc for 7 years, responsible for Risk, Assurance and Compliance groupwide. Prior to RSA he held roles at HSBC Investment Bank, Aviva, the UK Financial Services Authority and Deloitte.
William is a leading voice on climate risk in the financial sector, having served as a member of the ClimateWise Council and of the UK’s Climate Financial Risk Forum, and as chair of the Emerging Risks Initiative of leading global insurers, publishing a major climate study ‘The Heat is on – Insurability and Resilience in a Changing Climate’.
Hear from Bruce Usher, Professor of Practice at Columbia Business School, as we examine the investment opportunities and strategies that have emerged in response to the challenges of climate change.
We know that we need to rapidly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid catastrophic levels of climate change. This will require considerable private capital. Thankfully, there are significant investment opportunities today to support this transition, including renewable energy, electric vehicles, and battery storage, to name just a few.
Today’s discussion is all about the investment opportunities arising from climate change and the strategies that investors are using to pursue them. We’ll explore three key themes:
- The trends that are accelerating the flow of capital into transition investments;
- The pros and cons of different investment strategies, such as divestment and ESG investing;
- And what lies ahead for those who are investing in the era of climate change.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Bruce’s research and academic profile on Columbia Business School’s website
- Bruce’s new book, Investing in the Era of Climate Change
- Mark Carney’s 2015 speech, “Breaking the Tragedy of the Horizon”
- Bill Gates’ impact first initiative, Breakthrough Energy
Speaker’s Bio Prof. Bruce Usher, Columbia Business School
Bruce is a Professor of Practice at the Columbia Business School, and Faculty Director for the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, where he teaches on the intersection of finance, social and environmental issues. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Earth Institute, and chairs the University’s Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing.
Prior to joining Columbia University, Bruce was CEO of EcoSecurities Group plc, which developed greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in developing countries. Bruce’s latest book and the topic of today’s discussion, Investing in the Era of Climate Change, has just been published.
Hear from Prof. Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero, as we explore the potential for machine learning to help us navigate an increasingly difficult transition to net-zero.
Time is fast running out to limit end of century warming to 1.5oC. With significant European energy insecurity in the wake of the Ukrainian war, and increasing diplomatic tension between the world’s largest emitters, it is increasingly uncertain whether global emissions will fall rapidly enough to secure a 1.5oC warming scenario. Without doubt, we’re at a crossroads, and tough decisions need to be made about what level of climate risk we’re willing to accept for future generations.
At the same time, we’re also on the cusp of a revolution in our capacity to understand and tackle climate change through data and analytics. With the proliferation of satellite and remote sensing technologies, comes the potential for a complete paradigm shift in climate modelling through AI and machine learning. This opens up many exciting opportunities for both mitigating and adapting to climate change.
We will discuss:
- How machine learning can greatly improve the power of climate models;
- Whether the 1.5 degrees warming limit is still alive;
- And how to better communicate the urgency and complexity of climate-related issues.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Emily’s research and academic profile on the University of Cambridge website;
- The Ladybird Book on Climate Change, co-authored by Emily, King Charles III, and Tony Juniper (Ladybird Expert Series);
- Cambridge Zero Homepage (University of Cambridge’s climate initiative).
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero
Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, holding several research and leadership positions at the University of Cambridge, where she has worked for almost 22 years. A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science.
As Director of Cambridge Zero, the University’s climate initiative, Emily leads on cutting edge research, education, and collaboration related to the transition to a climate-resilient, zero-carbon future. Emily is also a Professor of Environmental Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology.
Hear from Prof. Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero, as we explore the potential for machine learning to help us navigate an increasingly difficult transition to net-zero.
Time is fast running out to limit end of century warming to 1.5oC. With significant European energy insecurity in the wake of the Ukrainian war, and increasing diplomatic tension between the world’s largest emitters, it is increasingly uncertain whether global emissions will fall rapidly enough to secure a 1.5oC warming scenario. Without doubt, we’re at a crossroads, and tough decisions need to be made about what level of climate risk we’re willing to accept for future generations.
At the same time, we’re also on the cusp of a revolution in our capacity to understand and tackle climate change through data and analytics. With the proliferation of satellite and remote sensing technologies, comes the potential for a complete paradigm shift in climate modelling through AI and machine learning. This opens up many exciting opportunities for both mitigating and adapting to climate change.
We will discuss:
- How machine learning can greatly improve the power of climate models;
- Whether the 1.5 degrees warming limit is still alive;
- And how to better communicate the urgency and complexity of climate-related issues.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Emily’s research and academic profile on the University of Cambridge website;
- The Ladybird Book on Climate Change, co-authored by Emily, King Charles III, and Tony Juniper (Ladybird Expert Series);
- Cambridge Zero Homepage (University of Cambridge’s climate initiative).
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero
Emily is a climate scientist and mathematician, holding several research and leadership positions at the University of Cambridge, where she has worked for almost 22 years. A polar expert, she previously led a UK national research programme on the Southern Ocean and its role in climate. In 2016 she was awarded an OBE for services to science and the public communication of science.
As Director of Cambridge Zero, the University’s climate initiative, Emily leads on cutting edge research, education, and collaboration related to the transition to a climate-resilient, zero-carbon future. Emily is also a Professor of Environmental Data Science at the Department of Computer Science and Technology.
Hear from Prof. David Victor and Dr. Danny Cullenward, as we dive into the political forces that mould the climate policy landscape.
Designing climate policies that are effective in achieving climate change mitigation and adaptation is a major challenge.
Most economists argue for a carbon tax, which helps align incentives appropriately. But the costs can be all too visible to consumers, prompting protests and undermining their political acceptability. Indeed, when it comes to climate policy, you will often find that there is a trade-off between what is effective, and what is realistic.
Today’s discussion is all about how politics shapes the plausibility and effectiveness of different climate policies. We discuss how the interests of consumers, firms, and political parties play a major role in determining not only what climate policies work best, but which ones are even possible.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why policies with highly visible costs tend to be avoided by politicians;
- How politically organized groups can resist the implementation of market-based policies;
- And the surprizing difference in mitigatory power between market-based and regulatory policies.
Links from today’s discussion:
- David and Danny’s 2020 book, Making Climate Policy Work
- The historical, political, and economic phenomenon of Potemkin villages
- Severin Borenstein et al.’s research paper on the relative mitigatory efficacies of market-based and non-market-based climate policies
- Martin Weitzman’s research paper on price-based vs. quantity-based policies in the context of emissions uncertainty
Hear from Prof. David Victor and Dr. Danny Cullenward, as we dive into the political forces that mould the climate policy landscape.
Designing climate policies that are effective in achieving climate change mitigation and adaptation is a major challenge.
Most economists argue for a carbon tax, which helps align incentives appropriately. But the costs can be all too visible to consumers, prompting protests and undermining their political acceptability. Indeed, when it comes to climate policy, you will often find that there is a trade-off between what is effective, and what is realistic.
Today’s discussion is all about how politics shapes the plausibility and effectiveness of different climate policies. We discuss how the interests of consumers, firms, and political parties play a major role in determining not only what climate policies work best, but which ones are even possible.
In this episode, we explore:
- Why policies with highly visible costs tend to be avoided by politicians;
- How politically organized groups can resist the implementation of market-based policies;
- And the surprizing difference in mitigatory power between market-based and regulatory policies.
Links from today’s discussion:
- David and Danny’s 2020 book, Making Climate Policy Work
- The historical, political, and economic phenomenon of Potemkin villages
- Severin Borenstein et al.’s research paper on the relative mitigatory efficacies of market-based and non-market-based climate policies
- Martin Weitzman’s research paper on price-based vs. quantity-based policies in the context of emissions uncertainty
Hear from Prof. Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, as we dig up lessons in climate risk from the ancient world of our ancestors.
Humanity has been subject to extreme weather and natural climate change for millions of years, and we can trace its impacts back to even our most ancient civilizations. A recent revolution in climate archaeology offers us a window into the climate risk management practices of the past.
Just as contemporary risk management relies on historical data, ancient humans relied on the knowledge of their ancestors to deal with the risks of climate change. Although much of this ancient risk management tradition has been lost to time, powerful archaeological techniques allow us to piece together stories of how humanity has dealt with the social, economic, and political consequences of climate change over the last 30,000 years.
That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll explore the history of humanity’s relationship with climate change, including insights on:
- What the past can teach us about risk management in the modern era;
- How climate change has shaped (and sometimes devastated) human societies in the past;
- And the scientific breakthroughs that have allowed archaeologists to bring this knowledge into the present.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Brian’s bibliography - https://www.biblio.com/brian-m-fagan/author/5110
- The 1997-98 El Niño event - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997%E2%80%9398_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event
- Brian on The Daily Show with John Stewart - https://www.cc.com/video/9jg7ty/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-brian-fagan
- Brian’s article on Hubert Lamb’s ‘church steeple meteorology’ - https://www.jstor.org/stable/3986152
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of California
Brian is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Brian studied archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University, before spending seven years in East and Central Africa, where he became a pioneering scholar of African history.
A prolific author, many of Brian’s books explore the history of Earth’s climate, examining the impacts the environment has had on human civilization (and vice versa) since the dawn of time. These works include “Floods, Famines, and Emperors”, “The Little Ice Age”, “The Great Warming”, and the topic of today’s discussion, “Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors,” which he co-authored with fellow archaeologist Dr. Nadia Durrani.
Hear from Prof. Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, as we dig up lessons in climate risk from the ancient world of our ancestors.
Humanity has been subject to extreme weather and natural climate change for millions of years, and we can trace its impacts back to even our most ancient civilizations. A recent revolution in climate archaeology offers us a window into the climate risk management practices of the past.
Just as contemporary risk management relies on historical data, ancient humans relied on the knowledge of their ancestors to deal with the risks of climate change. Although much of this ancient risk management tradition has been lost to time, powerful archaeological techniques allow us to piece together stories of how humanity has dealt with the social, economic, and political consequences of climate change over the last 30,000 years.
That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll explore the history of humanity’s relationship with climate change, including insights on:
- What the past can teach us about risk management in the modern era;
- How climate change has shaped (and sometimes devastated) human societies in the past;
- And the scientific breakthroughs that have allowed archaeologists to bring this knowledge into the present.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Brian’s bibliography - https://www.biblio.com/brian-m-fagan/author/5110
- The 1997-98 El Niño event - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997%E2%80%9398_El_Ni%C3%B1o_event
- Brian on The Daily Show with John Stewart - https://www.cc.com/video/9jg7ty/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-brian-fagan
- Brian’s article on Hubert Lamb’s ‘church steeple meteorology’ - https://www.jstor.org/stable/3986152
Speaker’s Bio(s) Prof. Brian Fagan, Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of California
Brian is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Brian studied archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University, before spending seven years in East and Central Africa, where he became a pioneering scholar of African history.
A prolific author, many of Brian’s books explore the history of Earth’s climate, examining the impacts the environment has had on human civilization (and vice versa) since the dawn of time. These works include “Floods, Famines, and Emperors”, “The Little Ice Age”, “The Great Warming”, and the topic of today’s discussion, “Climate Chaos: Lessons on Survival from Our Ancestors,” which he co-authored with fellow archaeologist Dr. Nadia Durrani.
Hear from Sean Kidney, CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative, as we explore the many ways finance is going green, from the phenomenal growth of the green bond market, to the ongoing revolution in investor sentiment, to the growing financial risks from climate change… and much, much more!
There are few challenges facing humanity as important as the transition towards a resilient, net-zero global economy. The mitigation and adaptation required will need great deal of both public and private investment. In this context, green bonds are an exciting opportunity for long-term investors, who are increasingly incorporating climate risk into their financial decision-making.
Today’s episode starts off with the remarkable growth of the green bond market, before moving onto a wide range of topical issues, including:
- Broader market trends, including transition finance, and the growing convergence of climate science and transition policy;
- The relationship between food and energy security, the transition to net-zero, and Russia’s war on Ukraine;
- In response to comments by Stuart Kirk, why investors really do need to worry about the financial risks from climate change.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) homepage: https://www.climatebonds.net/
- International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) green bond page: https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/corp_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/about+ifc_new/investor+relations/ir-products/grnbond-overvw
- Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment – The Stern Review: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/the-economics-of-climate-change-the-stern-review/
- Climate Bonds Initiative Steel Criteria: https://www.climatebonds.net/standard/steel
- Suspended HSBC employee Stuart Kirk’s comments on climate risk: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61519111
- European Commission’s Platform on Sustainable Finance: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/sustainable-finance/overview-sustainable-finance/platform-sustainable-finance_en
Speaker Bio Sean Kidney, CEO, Climate Bonds Initiative
Sean is CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative, an international NGO working to mobilize global capital for climate action. Their work includes a green bond definitions and certification scheme with $34 trillion of assets represented on its Board and some 200 organizations involved in its development and governance.
Sean is a member of the European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance and is a Professor in Practice at SOAS University of London, and for the past three years, he has been voted GlobalCapital magazine’s “Most Influential Champion” of the sustainable finance market.
Hear from Eila Kreivi, Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor at the European Investment Bank, as we take a closer look at the EU Taxonomy, including what it is and isn’t, how it developed, and what it means for the future of sustainable finance.
A key challenge with tackling climate change is how to channel the vast amount of private sector investment towards activities that are ‘green’ or transitioning to green. Taxonomies are potentially useful, setting out definitions and thresholds for activities to count as green. But although taxonomies have the potential to improve market clarity and reduce ‘greenwash’, they are resource intensive to construct and are open to misuse.
The EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance is one of the most ambitious green taxonomies in the world, and has been the subject of much debate (and confusion) since its ratification in 2020. That’s why in today’s episode, we’ll set the record straight on what the EU taxonomy does, what it doesn’t do, and how what it means for financial professionals, including:
- The history of the Taxonomy and its high-level objectives,
- How the Taxonomy’s implementation is shaped by both science and politics,
- How the Taxonomy may evolve in the future.
Links from today’s discussion:
- European Investment Bank (EIB) homepage: https://www.eib.org/en/index.htm
- International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) homepage: https://www.icmagroup.org
- European Commission – The High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance’s reports: https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/sustainable-finance-high-level-expert-group_en
- ‘Do no significant harm’ - Technical Guidance by the EU Commission - https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/2021_02_18_epc_do_not_significant_harm_-technical_guidance_by_the_commission.pdf
- Mark Campanale on the Climate Risk podcast (discusses the EU Taxonomy at 00:16:08) - https://www.garp.org/podcast/net-zero-supply-side-issue-cr-220303
- European Banking Authority on bank reporting standards for environmentally sustainable activities - https://www.eba.europa.eu/eba-advises-commission-kpis-transparency-institutions%E2%80%99-environmentally-sustainable-activities
- European Commission – Platform on Sustainable Finance: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/sustainable-finance/overview-sustainable-finance/platform-sustainable-finance_en
- European Commission – International Platform on Sustainable Finance: https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/sustainable-finance/international-platform-sustainable-finance_en
Speaker Bio Eila Kreivi, Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor, European Investment Bank (EIB)
Eila took up her current position at the EIB in February 2022. Over her 27-year career at the EIB, she held numerous positions, including most recently as Director of its Capital Markets Department.
Previously, Eila has chaired the Executive Committee of the Green Bond Principles and she represented the EIB at the EU High-level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance. In October 2020, she became a member of the Platform on Sustainable Finance, an advisory body created by the European Commission.
Hear from Fathom’s Matthew Jones and Andrew Smith as we discuss the challenges and opportunities created by climate change for modellers of physical risk. Modelling physical risks, particularly from natural catastrophes, is challenging, requiring specialist knowledge and complex data sets. Additionally, with climate change affecting the frequency and severity of many natural catastrophes, these models need to start incorporating future risk from climate change. Today’s episode will explore this growing need for new and sophisticated climate analytics providers in the financial sector, with a particular focus on flood risk.
We’ll uncover lessons for risk professionals from:
- The evolution of natural catastrophe modelling in the (re)insurance industries
- The development of the current physical risk modelling ecosystem, including the establishment of industry-syndicated data and modelling standards
- The importance of a transparent and diverse model vendor market, and how this has fostered a culture of collaboration and innovation.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Fathom flood risk intelligence homepage: https://www.fathom.global/
- Oasis Loss Modelling Framework (LMF) homepage: https://oasislmf.org/
- Oasis LMF on GitHub: https://github.com/OasisLMF/OasisLMF
- Nasdaq Risk Modelling for Catastrophes platform: https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/nasdaq-risk-modelling-for-catastrophes
- Oasis LMF, Open Exposure Data Standard homepage: https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/open-exposure-data-oed
- Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES) explained on the Bank of England website: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/stress-testing/2021/key-elements-2021-biennial-exploratory-scenario-financial-risks-climate-change
- FEMA Flood Maps (US Department of Homeland Security): https://www.fema.gov/flood-maps
Speaker Bios Andrew Smith, Co-Founder and Chief Operations Officer at Fathom
Andy is one of the co-founders and directors at Fathom. He completed a PhD under Professor Paul Bates, and it was whilst undertaking his PhD that the idea of founding a company first emerged.
This quickly led to a change in his research focus, from climate change impact studies, to the development of large scale flood models, leading to numerous publications in this field.
Since completing his PhD in 2014, Andrew undertook a post-doctoral research position at the University of Bristol before becoming Chief Operations Officer at Fathom full-time in 2016.
Matthew Jones, Chief Product Officer at Fathom
Matt joined Fathom in 2022, leaving his position as Head of Catastrophe Risk Product at Nasdaq, where he led the development of Nasdaq’s Oasis-based multi-vendor catastrophe risk modelling platform. Prior to joining Nasdaq, Matt has held several roles linked to catastrophe modelling, including founding Cat Risk Intelligence, a UK based company providing catastrophe risk management consultancy to the (re)insurance industry, and as Global Head of Catastrophe Management for the Zurich Insurance Group. Matt has a PhD in Oceanography and Remote Sensing from University College London and is a co-author of ‘Natural Catastrophe Risk Management and Modelling: A Practitioner’s guide’.
Hear from Julie Pullen, a leading expert in ocean-atmosphere interactions, on how our oceans are being affected by climate change, what we stand to lose, and how we can restore them whilst building resilience.
The world’s oceans are critical to all life on Earth. They have also buffered us against the worst impacts of climate change, absorbing about a third of all of our carbon emissions, and around 90% of the temperature increase from global warming. However, ocean ecosystems are undergoing huge changes, and if we don’t act soon, we may lose the many benefits that oceans bring to our economies and societies. In this episode, we will explore:
- The wide range of impacts that climate change and environmental degradation have on the world’s oceans
- How changes in our oceans and ocean ecosystems become risks in our economies and societies
- The proliferation of blue carbon projects, and how they preserve the benefits of the oceans while tackling climate change
We learn that there are increasingly effective channels for financial institutions to intervene in the degradation of the oceans, whilst building resilience to climate risk.
Links from today’s discussion:
- Julie’s article on the connection between climate risk and climate solutions: https://sustainablebrands.com/read/defining-the-next-economy/how-climate-risk-can-inform-climate-solutions
- Julie’s marine oxygen story in Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marine-oxygen-levels-are-the-next-great-casualty-of-climate-change/
- National Academy of Sciences Ocean CDR report: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/a-research-strategy-for-ocean-carbon-dioxide-removal-and-sequestration
- WEF Ocean Resource page: https://www.weforum.org/friends-of-ocean-action/mangroves-working-group
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s sustained research the "twilight zone": https://twilightzone.whoi.edu/
- Blue Carbon Buyers Alliance: https://scalingclimatesolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Blue-Carbon-Buyers-Alliance.pdf
- Open Source-Climate: https://os-climate.org/
Speaker’s Bio Julie Pullen is a climate scientist specializing in ocean-atmosphere interactions, and serves on the Executive Committee of the American Meteorological Society. As a former engineering professor, she has held leadership roles in academia, government, non-profit organizations, and the private sector.
Julie is an Adjunct Research Scientist at Columbia’s Earth Institute, and up until recently was a Climate Strategist at Jupiter Intelligence. She’s now embarking on a new venture in ocean climate tech. She is also a member of the GARP Advisory Committee for our very own Sustainability and Climate Risk Certificate.
Hear from Kevin Dooley, Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management, as he talks to us about how managing the sustainability of your supply chain is the best approach to risk management.
Supply chains are an absolutely integral part of the modern global economy. But as they grow in complexity, they become more fragile. They are also often opaque to companies wanting to decarbonize through their value chain – that is, covering their so-called scope 3 emissions.
In this episode we look at three main issues:
- How are companies are analysing their supply chains and adapting them to make them more sustainable and resilient
- The capabilities that risk professionals should look for when lending or investing in companies that have complex supply chains
- And the lessons on risk management that we can glean from case studies of supply chain disruptions.
We learn that understanding the risks in the supply chain and considering its sustainability are two sides of the same coin.
Links from today’s discussion:
- The Sustainability Consortium (TSC) - https://sustainabilityconsortium.org/
- THESIS Supply Chain Sustainability Index - https://sustainabilityconsortium.org/thesis/
- Responsible Businesses Alliance (RBA) - https://www.responsiblebusiness.org/
- Science Based Targets - https://sciencebasedtargets.org/
- Details of Weike & Sutcliffe’s research on high reliability organizational cultures
Speaker’s Bio Kevin Dooley is Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at Arizona State University, and a Senior Sustainability Scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation.
As Chief Scientist of The Sustainability Consortium, Kevin leads a global research team that works with over 100 of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers to develop tools that measure and track progress on critical product sustainability issues.
He has published more than 100 research articles and co-authored an award-winning book, ‘Organizational Change and Innovation Processes’. Kevin has consulted over 200 companies in the areas of sustainability, supply chain management, technology, and innovation. He obtained his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of Illinois.
Hear from Alan Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner, about the culture and capabilities that asset owners look for in the companies they invest in. Asset owners have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their ultimate beneficiaries, which often forces them to take a longer-term perspective than many other types of financial firms. So, it’s not surprising that many of them are concerned about the systemic nature of climate risks. Many are proactively engaging with firms in the real economy to encourage the right culture and capabilities to steer their companies to net zero.
In this episode we talk about some of the key dilemmas currently facing asset owners:
- How should they assess firms’ commitments to net zero and their underlying purpose and values?
- How should they decide when and how to engage with firms?
- And when is it best to divest?
Links from today’s discussion:
- IPCC Sixth Assessment Report: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability
- Engine NO.1
- Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment
- Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Meryam Omi
- GARP Climate Risk Podcast with Sir Dieter Helm
Speaker’s Bio Alan Smith – First Church Estates Commissioner, Church of England
Alan Smith’s career spans 35 years in risk management, finance, investment banking and advisory roles at HSBC and KPMG. He held various positions at HSBC, including Global Head of Risk Strategy, and helped shape the bank’s global approach to sustainability and climate risk management.
He was recently appointed First Church Estates Commissioner – an appointment that is approved by the Queen herself. In this role, he chairs the Church Commissioners' Assets Committee, which is responsible for the strategic management of a £9.2 billion investment portfolio.
Hear from Mark Campanale, Founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative, as we dive into the strategies being used to align financial markets to a net-zero economy.
Global financial markets play a major role in addressing the challenges of climate change. But is the financial system equipped with the right tools to progress the net-zero transition with the urgency that is required? Are current strategies, such as the TCFD disclosures framework and the EU Taxonomy likely to get us to net-zero, or do we need to think more radically?
In this episode of the Climate Risk Podcast, guest Mark Campanale shares his thoughts on the latest developments in the world of sustainable finance, including:
- Why focusing on disclosures only addresses one part of the sustainable finance issue
- The limitations of demand-side policy interventions and the need for supply-side restrictions
- What McKinsey & Co. got wrong about the cost of the net-zero transition
Links from today’s discussion:
- The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance
- The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
- Carbon Tracker: A Tale of Two Share Issues
- McKinsey & Company: Net-Zero Transition Report
- INET Oxford: Going Big and Fast on Renewables Could Save Trillions
- BloombergNEF: ‘Green’ Hydrogen to Outcompete ‘Blue’ Everywhere by 2030
- InfluenceMap: Lobbying on the EU Taxonomy’s Green Criteria
- Carbon Tracker: ‘Flying Blind’ Report – Look out for GARP’s upcoming webcast with the report’s author, Barbara Davidson.
Speaker Bio Mark Campanale – Founder and Executive Chairman of the Carbon Tracker Initiative
Mark is the Founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative and author of the “unburnable carbon” thesis. More recently, Mark has co-founded Planet Tracker, focusing on natural resource-based industries, and Industry Tracker, focusing on the materials sector.
Prior to forming these groups, Mark had 25-years’ experience in sustainable financial markets, working for several major asset managers. He is a co-founder of some of the earliest responsible investment funds, firstly at Jupiter Asset Management in 1989 with their ‘Ecology Funds’, and then with Henderson Global Investor’s ‘Industries of the Future’ Funds.
Mark has also served on many different sustainable finance forums, including the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit. Mark is also a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Amidst growing concerns over the sustainability of space-based technologies, Chris Geiger explains his firm’s strategy for overcoming the many challenges at this frontier of engineering.
Space-based technologies are an increasingly important part of the global infrastructure and — like all of Earth’s resources — should be managed sustainably. This episode serves as a prime example of how firms can embed long-term thinking, resilience, and adaptability into their corporate structure, and how this can help reduce the impact of risks from climate change and environmental degradation.
Today’s episode will explore:
- The challenges facing space-based technologies today and in the future
- The role of resilient engineering design in environmental sustainability
- The importance of effective governance structures for sustainable business strategies
Links from today’s discussion:
- Article on Lockheed Martin tech innovations
- Details of Chris Geiger’s paper on space sustainability
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker’s Bio Chris Geiger – Internal Audit Director at Lockheed Martin
Over his 20-year career with Lockheed, Chris has held leadership positions across Engineering, Enterprise Risk Management, and Sustainability. In his current role, he leads the global internal audit function, evaluating corporate risk exposure and governance strategies.
Chris is also a board member for the MidFlorida Credit Union and is a vice-chair of the International Astronautical Federation Enterprise Risk Management Committee. He has also served on governmental advisory boards relating to emergency planning and housing in Florida.
As we head into 2022, Jo and Maxine look back at the past year of Climate Risk Podcasts, reviewing key learnings from our guests and discussing recent trends in climate risk management.
From lawyers to professors, regulators to entrepreneurs, we’ve had a great variety of guests talk about a wide range of topics over the last year. This episode re-examines the rich knowledge that has been shared on the Climate Risk Podcast over the last 12 months, creating a narrative of climate risk wisdom to guide our listeners through this fast-moving field.
So, today’s episode will explore:
- What we’ve learnt about the scale and nature of climate risks
- How mitigation and adaption strategies are evolving, and what capabilities risk professionals must develop to manage these risks more effectively
- What to expect as a sustainability and climate risk professional in 2022
Links from today’s discussion:
Net Zero Article: https://climate.garp.org/insight/making-sense-of-cop26-a-short-guide-to-the-why-when-and-how-of-reaching-net-zero/
Sustainable Bonds Article: https://climate.garp.org/insight/sustainable-bonds-understanding-this-growth-area/
Sixth IPCC Report: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-i/
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker Bios Jo Paisley, President, GARP Risk Institute (GRI), has worked on a variety of risk areas at GRI, including stress testing, operational resilience, model risk management and climate risk. Her career prior to joining GARP spanned public and private sectors, including working as the Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialist Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority and as Global Head of Stress Testing at HSBC.
Maxine Nelson, Senior Vice President, GARP Risk Institute (GRI), currently focusses on climate risk management. Previous roles have included operational risk modelling at NAB, leading KMPG London’s credit risk team, senior consultant at Oliver Wyman, responsibility for counterparty credit risk at the UK Financial Services Authority, and Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC.
By their very nature, it can be extremely difficult to capture the truly disastrous potential of the tail risks associated with climate change. Additionally, the growing complexity of human and natural systems means that tail risks will continue to arise in unexpected and novel ways.
In today’s episode, we’ll explore a new perspective on understanding and assessing tail risks, and how we can build resilience to these threats within organizations and at the societal level.
So, today’s episode will explore:
- Why the risks associated with even 2.0oC warming are greater than you might think
- How climate risks are transmitted through, and amplified by, our interconnected economy
- How risk professionals can best prepare for the complex and unpredictable risks of climate change
Links from today’s discussion:
- Climate change risk assessment 2021: Chatham House’s research publication detailing the consequences and systemic cascading risks likely from climate change - https://www.chathamhouse.org/2021/09/climate-change-risk-assessment-2021
- UK Climate Risk Independent Assessment (CCRA3) Technical Report: The UK Climate Change Committee’s independent analysis of the risks and opportunities for the UK - https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/independent-assessment-of-uk-climate-risk/
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Tim Benton, Research Director, Chatham House and Professor of Population Ecology, University of Leeds
Tim joined Chatham House in 2016, where he now leads the Environment and Society Programme. He also holds active roles as a both a professor and as Dean of Strategic Research Initiatives at the University of Leeds.
His research focuses on global food security, food systems and resilience, and natural resource management. From 2011 to 2016, Tim was the ‘champion’ of the UK’s Global Food Security programme. He has also been a contributing author for the IPCC and has more than 150 published academic papers to his name.
Many of the financial risks that will arise from the transition towards a net-zero economy will be determined by what climate-related policies are enacted, the speed with which policymakers act, and how the economy evolves in response to these policies.
Given economics’ critical role in policymaking, the economist’s perspective on climate change provides insights into how these policy options might evolve, helping risk professionals to better identify and assess financial risks associated with the transition to net-zero.
So, today’s episode will explore:
- How economics shapes climate policy, and how climate policymaking shapes the economy
- How well climate change is incorporated into economists’ thinking, models, and policymaking guidance
- How economics needs to evolve to fully address the risks from climate change
Links from today’s discussion:
Harvard University’s interdisciplinary approach to climate change: https://climatechange.environment.harvard.edu/home#section3
Keep Climate Policy Focused on The Social Cost of Carbon - Jim’s article on the ‘social cost of carbon’ vs. ‘cost-effectiveness’ approaches: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7813
The United States’ Renewable Fuel Standard Program: https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-standard-program/overview-renewable-fuel-standard
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Jim Stock, Professor of Political Economy and Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University
Jim’s current research includes energy and environmental economics with a focus on fuels and on US climate change policy.
From 2013-2014, Jim served as a Member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where his portfolio included macroeconomics and energy, and environmental policy. From 2007-2009, he was Chair of the Harvard Economics Department, and he holds a Doctorate in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Against a backdrop of increasing societal awareness and improved scientific understanding of climate change, many stakeholders regard the law as an important tool to hold firms and governments to account and drive forward the green agenda.
Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, there has been a significant rise in the number of climate-related litigation cases, increasing the legal jeopardy and reputational risk for firms navigating the transition.
That’s why this episode will:
- Provide a framework for understanding the emerging legal landscape around climate change
- Address what factors are driving this increase in litigation
- Explore the risk implications for firms navigating the transition
Links from today’s discussion:
Clyde & Co’s Climate Resilience Hub – Providing insights on the key current and future high-impact risks and liabilities challenging the resilience of organisations across sectors: https://www.clydeco.com/en/insights/resilience/climate-change
The Geneva Association’s Climate Litigation Report: https://www.genevaassociation.org/research-topics/climate-change-and-emerging-environmental-topics/climate-litigation
The Shell CEO podcast interview (Outrage + Optimism): https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/climate-fossil-fuels-and-the-future-of-shell/id1459416461?i=1000527676936
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Nigel Brook – Partner at Clyde & Co
Nigel has been a partner at Clyde & Co since 1985 and heads the firm's reinsurance team. An international insurance and reinsurance disputes specialist with over 30 years' experience, Nigel is considered by many to be one of the top insurance lawyers worldwide.
He leads Clyde & Co’s global campaign on Resilience and Climate Change Risk, building a body of know-how and raising awareness of climate-related legal duties and potential liabilities. He is a member of the Law, Regulation and Resilience Policies Working Group of the Insurance Development Forum – a public/private partnership seeking to optimise and extend the use of insurance and the industry's risk management capabilities to protect those most vulnerable to disasters. He co-authored the firm's 2018 Reports on Parametric Insurance and Inclusive Insurance – exploring the role of innovative risk transfer in closing the global protection gap – and has authored and edited Clyde & Co's 2018/19 series of reports on the rising tide of Climate Change liability and duties of care.
Today’s episode is all about how to navigate the increasingly complex landscape of climate disclosures, sustainability reporting frameworks and green taxonomies that have emerged over the last few years.
This episode will address:
- What role disclosures should be playing in driving the transition to a low carbon economy
- Recent efforts to move beyond a narrow focus on climate to incorporate factors such as nature, biodiversity and water into disclosure frameworks
- The attributes that risk and finance professionals will need to ensure that they understand the risks and are supporting the transition, not greenwashing
Links from today’s discussion:
Learn more about CDSB: https://www.cdsb.net/
TCFD Knowledge Hub: https://www.tcfdhub.org/
Free Online Climate Risk/Reporting Courses: https://learn.tcfdhub.org/
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Mardi McBrien - Managing Director at the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)
For over a decade Mardi has played a leading role in driving the integration of climate and environmental information into corporate reporting with the same rigour as financial information, globally.
Prior to CDSB, Mardi has enjoyed an eclectic career which has seen her lead flagship environmental campaigns for WWF to working on the United Kingdom’s carbon market policy for their Department for Energy and Climate Change and public private partnership management for the UK timber supply chain, amongst other challenging roles. Mardi is a member of the UK Financial Reporting Council Advisory Panel, a fellow of the RSA, and has participated in a number of industry related advisory boards and committees as part of her role at CDSB, including the IFRS Foundation Technical Readiness Working Group for the new International Sustainability Standards Board, GRI Stakeholder Council, Corporate Reporting Dialogue, Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative (ASFI) and the IIRC Council.
Originally qualifying as a forester and environmental scientist (Melbourne University) and agricultural economist (SOAS), she volunteered as a trustee of one of the oldest environmental NGO’s in the world, the International Tree Foundation, and she is a founding Board member of WOCAN – Women Organising for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management.
Over the past few years, we have seen an increasing number of companies take it upon themselves to engage with the issues climate change and sustainability on a voluntary basis - with firms’ motivations ranging from an interest in the long-term sustainability of their company’s activities, to a sense a moral duty to people and planet.
There is a lot to be learnt from the organisations taking proactive steps to embed issues of sustainability at the heart of what they do. That’s why in today’s episode, we will be looking at this type of voluntary action, with a specific focus on the B Corp movement and their efforts to certify companies taking steps to think long term across all stakeholders.
Hearing about firms that have made the transition to becoming a certified B Corp gives us a great insight into what it means for an organisation to truly walk the talk when it comes to something like climate change.
Links from today’s discussion:
B Corporation website: www.bcorporation.uk
Better Business Act: www.betterbusinssact.org
Boardroom 2030: www.boardroom2030.org
For \more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Charmian Love - Co-Founder at B Lab UK and Social Entrepreneur in Residence at Said Business School, Oxford
Charmian is Co-Founder and Activist in Residence at B Lab UK, where she supports the growth of B Corps across the UK (and beyond) and is Co-Chair of B Lab’s Global Climate Taskforce.
Charmian is committed to helping accelerate the transition to a more regenerative, circular and inclusive economy. In her role as Social Entrepreneur in Residence at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, Charmian is guiding the development of the Regenerative and Circular Economy Lab and designed and teaches a popular MBA course on this subject.
Charmian also holds the role of Co-Director for the newly launched Oxford Climate Emergency Programme, has co-taught an Executive MBA course on Systempreneurship: Innovating for Impact, contributed to the core MBA class ‘Capitalism in Debate’ and is a regular tutor in the GOTO programme focused on equipping students with skills and tools to engage in system change.
She is a member of the Sustainability Advisory Council at the ICAEW (because she truly believes that accountants will save the world), a member of the ‘Regenerative Business’ working group at the Institute of Directors (IoD), Co-Chair of the BAC’s NetZero Working Group and an Advisory Committee member for GARP’s (Global Association of Risk Professionals) Sustainability and Climate Risk Certificate. She held the role of chair of B Lab UK for 5 years, was a founding trustee to the Future Fit Foundation and was on the UK board of the B Team until 2019.
In today’s episode we will be returning to the topic of climate disclosures, looking specifically at the advancements in TCFD adoption across the banking sector.
In 2019 we recorded a podcast that discussed the early adoption of the TCFD across the banking sector. Now, just 2 years on, we are starting to see a number of countries laying out plans for mandatory TCFD reporting.
Expectations around the quality of climate disclosures are rising and we are seeing the TCFD transitioning to become a part of business as usual reporting. That is why today’s discussion will be focused on learning from those already reporting to better understand what firms are doing well, as well as where improvements can be made.
This episode will directly address:
- what banks are doing well and what needs to be improved;
- whether or not general-purpose lending needs to become more closely tied with emissions or other green indicators; and
- why TCFD reporting remains fragmented and what to do about it
In memory of Roger Gifford
We wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Sir Roger Gifford who sadly passed away in May. Among his many accomplishments, he was a respected banker, former Lord Mayor of the City of London and Chair of the Green Finance Institute, playing a leading role in driving the green finance agenda in the UK. As someone who was always keen to support work promoting sustainable finance, he has been a good friend to GARP and was happy to write the Forewords to both BCS Consulting reports on TCFD discussed in this episode. We dedicate this episode of the podcast to his memory.
Links from today’s discussion:
Our previous podcast with Hector: https://garpcast.libsyn.com/tcfd-global-progress-for-the-banking-sector
BCS’ TCFD Report - Global Progress for the Banking Sector: http://www.bcsconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/BCS-TCFD-Global-Progress-Report-for-the-Banking-Sector-060521.pdf
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Hector Fontaine - Principal Consultant at BCS Consulting
Hector is a Risk & Finance management consultant and Sustainable Finance lead for BCS Consulting. BCS Consulting is focused on delivering complex business change projects to clients in banking and financial markets, working across Capital Markets, Retail & Corporate Banking and Finance & Risk functions in some of the world’s leading financial institutions.
Hector, as Sustainable Finance Lead, has expertise spanning finance and risk. Over the past few years, he has directed and co-authored a number of significant research papers, including the ESG Banking Benchmark Report back in 2018, and more recently two comprehensive reviews of the adoption and implementation of TCFD in the banking sector.
In this installment of the Climate Risk Podcast we are joined by renowned economist Professor Sir Dieter Helm, whose extensive experience of advising governments on energy and natural capital helps us cut through the hype and face the realities of reaching net zero.
In the run up to Glasgow’s COP26 as part of the global ‘race to zero’ initiative, we have seen a significant rise in commitments to reach net zero at both the national and firm level. But there are many routes to get there, different policy options, and of course difficult trade-offs to be considered. With all this activity, separating the noise from the substance and charting the right course can be challenging.
That’s why today’s conversation will be a sobering and honest discussion about the nature and scale of the challenge. Critiques of existing policy and ‘net zero’ commitments will be explored, as well as a roadmap for a country to achieve net zero in a way that genuinely ends its contribution to global climate change.
This episode will directly address:
- why achieving net zero doesn’t necessarily end your contribution to global climate change;
- whether offsets are ever acceptable; and
- if growth is possible in a net zero world
Prof. Sir Dieter Helm’s website: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/
A link through to Prof. Sir Dieter Helm’s authored works, including the subject of today’s show, Net Zero: How We Stop Causing Climate Change: http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/books/
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Sir Dieter Helm - Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics at New College
Sir Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford. He was Independent Chair of the Natural Capital Committee, providing advice to the government on the sustainable use of natural capital, until the end of the second term of the Committee in November 2020. In the New Year 2021 Honours List, Dieter was awarded a knighthood for services to the environment, energy and utilities policy.
He has written many books, most recently Net Zero (September 2020, William Collins) in which he addresses the action we all need to take to tackle the climate emergency.
His other books include: Green & Prosperous Land (2019, William Collins), Burn Out: The Endgame for Fossil Fuels (2017), The Carbon Crunch: Revised and Updated (2015) and Natural Capital: Valuing the Planet (2016), all published by Yale University Press.
Dieter has provided extensive advice to UK and European governments, including The Cost of Energy Review for the UK government in October 2017 and for the European Commission in preparing the Energy Roadmap 2030. He served both as a special advisor to the European Commissioner for Energy and as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Advisory Group on the Roadmap. He also assisted the Polish government in its presidency of the European Union Council.
Dieter is Chairman of Natural Capital Research, developing natural capital models and assessments for the better use of land, and Honorary Vice President of the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust.
In this instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast we are turning our attention to agriculture, forestry and land use, a sector that both affects, and is affected by, climate change.
Producing approximately 20% of total global greenhouse gasses, agriculture, forestry and land use is considered the second largest source of emissions after energy production, making it a critical focus for global decarbonisation.
But the sector’s sensitivity to changes in temperature and precipitation, as well as extreme weather more generally, means that it is also particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
With that said, there are positives to be drawn out of this situation. This is because many of the responses needed to the sector’s high emissions and physical vulnerabilities overlap to create compelling win-win situations. Well placed investments in agriculture combine emissions reductions with resilience building which, in turn, reduce financial risks for the sector.
To illustrate this, today’s episode will have three points of focus:
- How financial institutions can support the sector in locating and acting upon opportunities to reduce climate risk and build resilience
- The role of data in successfully identifying and responding to these win-wins
- The lessons that we can take from this sector and apply elsewhere
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Website: https://www.edf.org/
Financing Resilient Agriculture Report: https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/content/Financing_Resilient_Agriculture_Report.pdf
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub: https://climate.garp.org/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at - climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Maggie Monast - Director of Working Lands at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
During the past 10 years, Maggie has held a variety of roles at EDF, working with farmers, food companies, agricultural organizations, and others, such as financial firms, to create an agricultural system that drives climate stability, clean water, and food security. Maggie works to quantify the farm financial impacts of conservation practice adoption, collaborates with major corporations to develop sustainability initiatives, and develops innovative financial incentives to advance sustainable agriculture.
In this instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast we will be taking a closer look at the role of real economy firms, and their boards, in the race to net zero.
Last year we looked at the role that boards have in shaping firms’ climate strategies and developing approaches to managing the risks and opportunities from climate change. Since then, the pressure on boards has only mounted, given this more recent and growing emphasis on the transition to net zero.
So today we return to the boardroom, with a few key questions:
- What is the role of boards as firms transition to net zero?
- What would good board engagement look like?
- What does a commitment to reach net zero really mean anyway?
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at - climateriskpodcast@garp.com
For more information, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub - https://climate.garp.org/
Emily Farnworth - Deputy Director at the Centre for Climate Engagement, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
Emily has over 25 years of experience working with businesses, government and non-profit organisations to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. Emily has worked across multi-stakeholder groups and within specific industry sectors to collaborate on solutions to tackle climate change.
During her time as Head of Climate Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, and now at the Centre for Climate Change, Emily has led research, campaigns and communications strategies aimed at creating systemic change in the way businesses manage climate risk and decarbonize operations.
In this instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast we address a few different topics all tied together by the central theme of climate data.
Translating the output of climate, energy and economic models into decision useful climate analytics is fraught with challenges. It requires the bridging of informational gaps, but also the bridging of disciplines and communities. It also means navigating the uncertainty that comes with modelling something as complex as our global climate system.
Progress is being made in this domain though, and whilst best practice is yet to be established, we are starting to get a sense of what good looks like.
This episode covers:
- Being intentional about climate analytics - What data do you need and why do you need it?
- Navigating the uncertainty inherent in modelling complex systems
- What does good look like?
Check out the Four Twenty Seven website for more resource relating to climate data and analytics - https://427mt.com/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
For more information, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub - https://climate.garp.org/
Emilie Mazzacurati – Founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven & Global Head of Moody’s Climate Solutions
Emilie Mazzacurati is the Founder and CEO of Four Twenty Seven, a provider of data, market intelligence and analysis related to physical climate and environmental risks.
Driven by a conviction that businesses have a critical role to play in building resilience against climate change, and a need to bridge the gap between scientists, businesses, investors and governments, Emilie founded Four Twenty Seven to help meet this need back in 2012.
In addition to her work with Four Twenty Seven, Emilie is a lecturer on Business and Climate Change at the University of California and is a frequent speaker at international events on climate risks and opportunities.
In this instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast we address two pressing questions facing asset managers and explore their implications for the financial sector more broadly.
The first question is a fundamental one: what is the appropriate role for asset owners and asset managers in relation to climate change? How do these roles relate to one another and how far reaching are their obligations?
The second is an equally pressing question for the sector: engagement or divestment? When is it right to deploy one approach over the other? How impactful are these strategies and how can we navigate some of the unintended consequences?
This episode covers:
- The role of asset owners and asset managers
- Engagement vs Divestment – what do these two approaches entail and is it really an either/or situation?
- The shift in momentum ahead of COP26 – a closer look at net-zero commitments
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
For more information, visit GARP’s Climate Resources Hub - https://climate.garp.org/
Meryam Omi - Head of Sustainability and Responsible Investment Strategy at LGIM
Since joining LGIM in 2008, Meryam has been instrumental in establishing its engagement programme on key sustainability topics. She also led the launch of funds in the pioneering Future World range, as well as the Climate Impact Pledge, which is LGIM’s commitment to engage and act on climate change.
In her current role, Meryam is responsible for integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects into the investment process at LGIM and for creating responsible investment product solutions.
This episode covers:
- Carbon offsets – what are they and how can they help tackle climate change?
- Biodiversity – how can offsets promote regenerative activities and nature-based solutions?
- Nature-related Financial Disclosures – how does this relate to TCFD and what will the key metrics and targets be?
Links from today’s discussion:
South Pole - https://www.southpole.com/
Taskforce on Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets - https://www.iif.com/Portals/1/Files/TSVCM_Report.pdf
The Dasgupta Review: The economics of biodiversity - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-the-economics-of-biodiversity-the-dasgupta-review
Task Force on Nature-related Financial Disclosures - https://tnfd.info/
CPIC (Coalition for Private Investment in Conservation) - http://cpicfinance.com/
PCAF (Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials) - https://carbonaccountingfinancials.com/
PBAF (Partnership for Biodiversity Accounting Financials) - https://pbafglobal.com/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Rebecca Self –Director of Sustainable Finance at South Pole
Rebecca Self is Director of Sustainable Finance at South Pole, a climate change strategy and solutions company.
Rebecca has over 20 years of industry experience spanning numerous roles in finance. Prior to joining South Pole in 2020, Rebecca spent the previous three years as CFO of Sustainable Finance at HSBC Holdings plc, during which time she held responsibilities for HSBC's external ESG reporting and investor relations activity – including TCFD and SDG reporting.
Rebecca was the Chair of the European Banking Federation industry SDG working group and a member of other advisory groups including SASB and CDP, all with the common aim of progressing non-financial reporting.
When it comes to setting out the financial system’s response to climate change and the related risks, it is clear that financial regulation will have a key role to play.
Over the past year, we’ve seen supervisors setting out their expectations for climate risk management, with a number undertaking stress testing or scenario analysis exercises. More authorities are implementing mandatory Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, and the NGFS continues to grow, with now over 80 members. The recognition of climate change as a source of systemic risk means that this flurry of activity is set to continue this year.
That’s why this episode will be focusing on what the appropriate role of financial services is in tackling climate change, as well as the best way to test firms’ resilience to these risks. We’ll also discuss how climate risks should be balanced alongside broader ESG risks and some of the key hurdles that will need to be overcome in the years ahead.
This episode covers:
- How financial regulators are responding to climate risk
- Stress testing and scenario analysis – how and when these tools should be deployed
- Some of the current limitations around data
- Looking beyond climate change to broader environmental issues
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Arthur Yuen – Deputy Chief Executive at the HKMA
Arthur Yuen is in charge of the full range of banking policy, supervision, conduct, and enforcement issues at the HKMA. He joined the HKMA in 1996 as Head of Administration and has since taken up different responsibilities including research and liaison on China economic and market development issues before being appointed Head of Banking Supervision in 2000. He took up the position as Executive Director (Banking Development) in July 2004, Executive Director (Banking Supervision) in June 2005 and Executive Director (External) in July 2008. He was appointed to his present position on 1 January 2010.
The physical effects of climate change - rising global sea levels and temperature, to extreme weather events - are creating or exacerbating numerous risks.
Whilst physical risks are generating a significant amount of uncertainty for business and finance, the most direct impact of physical risk is the damage of physical assets and disruption to their use. Understanding and evaluating these risks is clearly very important, but it can become challenging as the scale of the assessment increases to the total assets held by a firm or within a portfolio.
That’s why this episode will be focusing on how the risks to physical assets can be assessed at scale and how to navigate the uncertainty inherent with this type of modelling. We will also discuss how mapping out supply chains, core infrastructure, and their interdependencies, can reveal vulnerabilities, as well as opportunities for collaborative adaptation.
By listening to today’s episode, you will learn about:
- The impacts of physical risk at the asset level
- The key inputs and outputs used when conducting a physical risk assessment
- The secondary impacts of physical risk on supply chains and core infrastructure
- How physical risk data can be used to facilitate collaborative adaptation efforts
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
XDI Cross Dependency Initiative - https://xdi.systems/
GARP’s Climate Resources Hub – https://climate.garp.org/
Rohan Hamden – Founder and CEO at XDI: Cross Dependency Initiative
Rohan Hamden is the founder and CEO of XDI: Cross Dependency Initiative, an international data and analytics organisation specialising in the modelling and analysis of asset level physical climate risk.
Rohan began his career as a fire fighter before working in the Australia government for nearly 15 years. During that time Rohan held a number of sustainability and climate related roles, culminating in the directorship of the Climate Adaptation Program for South Australia where he designed and led the implementation of the States multi-award-winning climate change adaptation program.
Rohan has advised various state and national governments on their climate adaptation programs in Australia, Canada, USA and the UK, and in 2017 he co-founded XDI with a vision of mainstreaming climate information into infrastructure and financial decision making.
In this latest instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast, we will be looking back at the past year of podcasts and considering the key learnings for risk professionals. This episode will also reflect on the progress that has been made in advancing climate risk management during 2020, and a look ahead to what’s on the horizon in 2021.
Today’s episode covers:
- Key lessons for risk professionals from the 2020 Climate Risk Podcast series
- Important trends risk professionals should be aware of
- Movements in financial regulation
- The impact of COVID on the climate agenda
- A look ahead to 2021
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
GARP’s Climate Resources Hub – https://climate.garp.org/
GARP - Global Survey of Climate Risk Management at Financial Firms -
NGFS – Occasional Papers
CFTC Report - Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System
Dr Maxine Nelson – Senior Vice President, GARP Risk Institute
Maxine has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD characterizing how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.
In this latest instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast, we will be exploring the issue of pricing the risks from climate change.
During the course of this inaugural series of the climate risk podcast, we have explored numerous perspectives on the pressing issue of climate change. That has included hearing from the insurance sector, boards, academia and more. But to round off this first series of climate interviews we are returning to what GARP is best known for, financial risk management.
That’s why in today’s episode we are speaking with Bob Litterman, a celebrated risk manager who has been actively involved with climate change issues for more than a decade.
Today’s episode covers:
- Understanding emissions as a negative externality and the failure to appropriately price carbon
- Aligning financial incentives with the transition to a low-carbon economy
- The CFTC’s report on Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System
- The value and limitations of scenario analysis as a tool for assessing climate risk
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links from today’s discussion:
CFTC Report - Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System
Bob Litterman – Founding Partner, Kepos Capital
Bob is Chairman of the Risk Committee and a founding partner of Kepos Capital, a New York City based investment management fund.
Prior to joining Kepos Capital in 2010, Bob enjoyed a 23-year career at Goldman Sachs, where he held roles in research, risk management, investment and thought leadership. In 1994, Bob was named a partner and became head of the firm-wide risk function.
During his tenure at Goldman, Bob researched and published a number of ground-breaking papers in asset allocation and risk management. He is the co-developer of the Black-Litterman Global Asset Allocation Model, a key tool in investment management, and has co-authored a number of influential books on Risk Management and Modern Investment Management.
In addition to his work at Kepos Capital, Bob serves on a number of boards, including the World Wildlife Fund, and as the chair of the Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Through the course of Bob’s illustrious career, he has also earnt numerous accolades including entrance into Risk Magazine’s Risk Management Hall of Fame and being named as GARP’s Risk Manager of the Year in 2013.
In this latest installment of the Climate Risk Podcast, we will be exploring two key concepts in the transition to net zero: greening finance and financing green.
One interesting finding from GARP’s 2020 Climate Risk Survey was that over the next five years financial firms expect climate-related opportunities to have a bigger impact on their strategies than climate-related risks, underlining the fact that navigating the impacts of climate change also means being alive to the opportunities being created.
That’s why in today’s episode we are speaking with the head of an organisation that is actively working to bring together coalitions of global experts to identify and unlock barriers to impactful green investment.
Dr Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE, CEO of the Green Finance Institute, works at the intersection of policy making and finance and will be exploring some of the current leading efforts to align financial flows with the need to transition to a net-zero economy.
Today’s episode covers:
- The distinction between greening finance and financing green
- How we can navigate barriers to green finance
- Embedding climate and sustainability in professional education
- A look ahead to COP26
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
*Please note that between the time of recording and the release of this episode, two potential green finance initiatives discussed towards the end of the interview have now been formally announced. The first is that on the 9th November 2020, the UK Government announced that the first UK sovereign green bonds will be issued during 2021. The second was the Government’s announcement that a UK Infrastructure Bank will be established to aid the UK’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic and transition to a net-zero economy by 2050.
Links from today’s discussion:
GFI Report - Accelerating green finance: Green Finance Taskforce report
GFI Report - Financing energy efficient buildings: the path to retrofit at scale
Ceres Report - Financing a Net-Zero Economy: Measuring and Addressing Climate Risk for Banks
GARP Survey - Second Annual Global Survey of Climate Risk Management at Financial Firms
Dr. Rhian-Mari Thomas OBE – Chief Executive Officer at Green Finance Institute
Rhian-Mari began her banking career at Barclays Investment Bank in 2000, spending 10 years in leveraged finance and financial sponsors coverage before holding a succession of leadership roles across Barclays Corporate Bank and Barclaycard.
Rhian-Mari’s time at Barclays culminated in the role of Global Head of Green Banking, during which time she was responsible for founding and chairing the Barclays Green Banking Council, a body that developed and launched Barclays’ suite of green finance products and services.
In 2019, Rhian-Mari was awarded an OBE for services to green banking and was appointed chief executive of the Green Finance Institute.
In addition to this role, Rhian-Mari is also an Emeritus Member of the Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), a commissioner for the Commission for Carbon Charging and an Advisor to the UK Government’s Climate Finance Accelerator programme.
In this latest instalment of the Climate Risk Podcast, we will be taking a closer look at the financial risks associated with energy and water systems, and how these could change as the impacts of climate change increase.
In this series we have stressed the importance of risk professionals building up a holistic view of climate risk. This requires better understanding the complex and interconnected nature of key systems in the climate, economy and society.
Two of the most fundamental factors at play in our global system are undoubtedly energy and water, systems that are themselves highly interconnected. That’s why in today’s episode, you will hear from Michael Webber, one of the world’s leading thinkers on the subject of water, energy, and the risks generated by these complex systems.
This discussion will cover:
- The interconnected systems of energy and water, and how these are being impacted by climate change
- How to navigate the financial risk of these impacts
- How to move forward - the role of technology, data and disclosures
- Key trade-offs and unintended consequences of action
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Michael Webber – Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE & Josey Centennial Professor in Energy Resources at the University of Texas at Austin
Michael’s expertise spans research and education at the convergence of engineering, policy, and commercialization on topics related to innovation, energy, and the environment.
In addition to authoring more than 400 publications and serving on the advisory board for Scientific American, Michael has published two insightful books on the topic of energy. 2016’s Thirst for Power addresses the connections between earth’s most valuable resources and offers an approach toward a sustainable future. 2019’s Power Trip is also packed full of insights as we attempt to resolve the tension that exists between our growing demand for energy and its impact on the planet.
The systemic and existential nature of the risks arising from climate change requires us to engage with the problem strategically at a high level. But how can we do this when the problem is so vast and complex?
One approach is the application of systems theory to our planet in a discipline known as earth system science. This approach treats the whole globe as a single complex system, observing the interactions of sub-systems such as our atmosphere and biosphere, as well as the feedback loops that act to stabilise or destabilise the fundamental conditions for life.
This approach has already unlocked a number of key insights for understanding the causes and impacts of climate change and is a vitally important perspective for anyone wanting to better understand complex and interconnected nature of the risks from climate change.
During this episode, you will hear from Tim Lenton, a leading academic in the field of earth system science and co-author of the seminal and award-winning paper on climatic tipping points and the non-linearity of climate change (https://www.pnas.org/content/105/6/1786).
In addition to discussing systems theory and a number of critical climatic tipping points, Tim also provides insights into the various emissions pathways that lie ahead of us and shines a light on some of the often underappreciated social impacts of climate change such as near term mass migration.
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Tim Lenton – Professor of Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter Tim Lenton is Director of the Global Systems Institute and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science at the University of Exeter.
Tim has over 20 years of research experience in studying the Earth as a system and developing and using models to understand its behaviour.
He has achieved many accolades, including the Times Higher Education Award for Research Project of the Year 2008 and the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award, 2013.
He is a Turing Fellow and a Fellow of the Linnean Society, the Geological Society and the Society of Biology.
Consumer sentiment is a critical part of climate transition risk. As consumers become increasingly aware of the impact goods and services are having on the planet, we will start to see profound shifts in demand.
Join us today as we hear from James Hand, Co-founder of the social enterprise GIKI, an organisation that is creating apps and data tools to inform the public about the impact of their consumption and drive greater transparency in the real economy.
James also reflects on the current state of ESG and how we can make ESG data more useful for driving decision making.
- Giki Badges: An app to help you find sustainable and healthy products in the UK supermarket - https://badges.giki.earth/
- Giki Zero: Your free personal guide to understand, track and lighten your footprint on the planet - https://zero.giki.earth/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
James Hand – Co-Founder and Data Scientist, Giki
James Hand is a co-founder of the social enterprise Giki.
Giki’s mission is to help people live more sustainably. Amongst their various initiatives, Giki has developed Giki Zero, a step by step sustainable life guide, as well as Giki Badges, an app to help people in the UK find sustainable food and products.
Before founding Giki, James has had a career in asset management, including roles as Co-Chief Investment Officer at Investec Asset Management (now Ninety One), and co-founder of the innovative 4Factor equity team. James has also been a longstanding advocate of embedding environmental, social and governance issues – often referred to as ESG - in investment decisions.
With expertise in data analysis, behavioural finance and company research, James is perfectly poised to talk to us about the challenges of creating readily available and digestible information to help consumers navigate the complex world of sustainability.
What are some of the limitations of the current disclosure frameworks for use by risk managers, and how can we tell when companies are saying one thing but doing another?
In recent months we have seen climate risk disclosure frameworks, such as the one set out by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), increasing in popularity. And whilst these developments are to be welcomed, current recommendations fall short of capturing a complete picture of a firm’s activities.
From a risk management perspective, that can be problematic.
The omission of certain reporting categories, such as an organisation’s voting record or lobbying activities, opens up the potential for firms to greenwash, introducing additional risks and undermining efforts to reach net zero.
That is why in today’s episode we are in conversation with Dylan Tanner, Co-founder and Executive Director of Influence Map, a UK based non-profit working to shine a light on corporate lobbying activities and voting records.
Find out how the work at Influence Map is helping to drive climate action by increasing transparency and accountability across firms in the financial sector and real economy.
- Influence Map’s Website: https://influencemap.org/index.html
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Dylan Tanner – Executive Director and Co-founder, Influence Map As well as having overall responsibility for InfluenceMap's operations globally, Dylan manages the FinanceMap platform. Prior to co-founding InfluenceMap, Dylan established a market-leading environmental consultancy in Tokyo which is now ERM Japan. Dylan grew and led a 50-person team engaging in a wide variety of corporate and technical advisory work in Japan and Asia covering environmental audits, land remediation, corporate sustainability and climate strategies.
Dylan grew up in Japan and is currently living in London. He holds a MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College and a PhD in Theoretical Physics and Mathematics from Kings College London. Dylan has an Erdős–Bacon number of 8.
Originally released on the GARP Risk Podcast on July 16, 2020.
In this episode of the Climate Risk Podcast series, we are moving beyond financial services to look at how climate change will affect firms in the real economy. We will be joined by Julie Baddeley, one of the UK’s most experienced women directors, who will be sharing insights on this topic from the perspective of the Board.
Julie is also one of the founders of Chapter Zero, a fast-growing network for Chairs, Committee Chairs and Non-Executive Directors. Chapter Zero has been established to provide support, education and tools to this important group on the matters of climate change and the associated risks and opportunities. Links to find out more about Chapter Zero, as well as some of there useful educational tools, can be found below.
Links from today’s discussion
- Chapter Zero’s Website: https://www.chapterzero.org.uk/
- Chapter Zero’s Toolkit for Boards: https://www.chapterzero.org.uk/toolkit/
- Chapter Zero’s Change Management Toolkit: https://www.chapterzero.org.uk/change-management/
- GARP’s 2020 Survey of Climate Risk Management at Financial Firms: https://climate.garp.org/insight/second-annual-global-survey-of-climate-risk-management-at-financial-firms/
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Julie Baddeley - Chair of Steering Group, Chapter Zero Julie Baddeley is one of the UK’s most experienced women directors having served in an executive and non-executive capacity on the boards of leading companies in the FTSE 100 and 250 indices, as well as major public sector organisations.
In 2001 she moved to a portfolio career and has served as a director across a range of sectors including consumer, retail, financial services, professional services and global industrial. She was chairman of global recruitment company Harvey Nash plc until its sale in 2018.
At the Said Business School, Julie coached top business teams from around the world on the execution of business strategy, having previously been the partner in charge of Accenture’s change management practice in Europe. She was Executive Director at Woolwich plc responsible for HR, IT and the insurance businesses.
Julie is active in raising the awareness of boards of UK quoted companies on the impact of climate change on their business models and balance sheets, and the impact they are having on the global climate. She is Director of the Hughes Hall Centre for Climate Change Engagement, which aims to bring Cambridge University thinking on climate science, law, regulation, risk and communication into the boardroom.
Originally released on the GARP Risk Podcast on June 11, 2020.
Continuing our theme from the last episode of the COVID series, in this special episode of the Climate Risk Podcast Series, host and Co-president of the GARP Risk Institute, Jo Paisley, is again joined by John Scott, Head of Sustainability Risk for the Zurich Insurance Group. Having briefly touched on some of the interconnections that exist between climate change and the ongoing COIVID-19 crisis in the previous episode, John has kindly returned to talk in more depth about this timely subject.
The episode addresses three key questions:
- Why does climate change make the occurrence of future pandemics more likely?
- Why would climate change worsen the impacts of a pandemic, whilst making the response harder?
- Why is this important for risk professionals and what is their role moving forward?
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Originally released on the GARP Risk Podcast on June 4, 2020.
Insurance plays such an important role in how we collectively navigate risk and many insurance firms are already used to dealing with the extreme weather events that are being made worse and more frequent by climate change. It is therefore important that the experience and insights found within the insurance sector are brought to bear on the pressing task of managing climate risk.
In this episode, host and Co-president of the GARP Risk Institute, Jo Paisley, is joined by John Scott, Head of Sustainability Risk for the Zurich Insurance Group. Through this conversation you will find specific insights into the nature of physical risk, as well as the ways in which insurance firms are positioned to guide effective action and investment towards both mitigation and adaptation efforts.
If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback regarding the Climate Risk podcast series, we would love to hear from you. Please email us at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Speaker Bio:
John Scott is Head of Sustainability Risk for the Zurich Insurance Group. He joined Zurich in 2001 becoming Head of Risk Insight in 2007 and was Chief Risk Officer for Zurich’s Global Corporate and Commercial Insurance businesses from 2009 to 2017. He took on his current role in 2018. John leads the Group’s engagement on sustainability risk, both internally and externally as the way Zurich delivers its purpose and values.
For the last ten years, in his roles as CRO for Commercial Insurance and as Head of Sustainability Risk, John has increasingly focused on climate change as a risk that affects the insurance industry. His unique combination of previous roles and experiences in the oil & gas and chemicals industries, together with his involvement in many industry and Government organisations, has given him a deep understanding of the risks and opportunities that climate change presents to companies, governments and society at large.
John is a member of the Institute of Directors in the UK, is on the Advisory Board to the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report and has contributed to industry and Government policy on climate change and green finance, through many organisations. John’s expertise in sustainability risk and, in particular climate change risk, has made him a sought-after speaker at numerous international conferences.
Originally released on the GARP Risk Podcast on April 23, 2020.
Welcome back to GARP’s Climate Risk Podcast Series. Through the course of this series we will be bringing you insights from those working at the cutting edge of climate change. We will be joined by regulators, business leaders and risk practitioners who will help us build up a holistic view of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses and explore how this might affect you in your day to day work.
In this episode, host and Co-president of the GARP Risk Institute, Jo Paisley, is joined by Betsy Nelson, recently retired CRO at the EBRD. Here at GARP, we have been emphasising the importance of placing the risks associated with climate change in the broader context of sustainability, which is why we think the perspective of a development bank is such an important one.
Through this episode, you will gain insights into:
- The pros and cons of implementing TCFD
- The appropriate role of stress testing and scenario analysis
- The difficult question of engagement vs. divestment.
Speaker Bio:
Former Vice President Risk and Chief Risk Officer of EBRD (European Bank of Reconstruction and Development)
Betsy Nelson became the EBRD's Vice President Risk and Compliance and Chief Risk Officer in November 2016 and served in that role until December 2019. She had been previously Vice President of Risk. She was a member of the Bank's Executive Committee.
Ms Nelson joined the EBRD in March 2012 as Vice President of the then combined Risk and Resources (Human Resources, Administrative Services and IT) and has extensive experience in the financial sector.
For the three years prior to joining the EBRD, she was the Head of Credit Department in the Risk Specialists Division of the Financial Services Authority (FSA, now PRA) in the United Kingdom, where she built the Authority’s first Credit Department with a team of wholesale, retail, structured finance and Basel credit model experts.
Before this she had a career spanning 30 years at JPMorgan Chase. She has worked most of her career in Europe and the UK. In her last 10 years at JPMorgan Chase, she held a number of senior management positions, including Head of Corporate Banking and Head of Client Credit Management, both for the EMEA region.
Originally released on the GARP Risk Podcast on March 17, 2020.
Welcome to the first episode of GARP Podcasts Climate Risk Series. Through the course of this series we will be bringing you insights from those working at the cutting edge of climate change. We will be joined by regulators, business leaders and risk practitioners who will help us build up a holistic view of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses and explore how this might affect you in your day to day work.
In today’s show, host and Co-president of the GARP Risk Institute, Jo Paisley, is joined by Michael Sheren, Senior Adviser at the Bank of England, to discuss three foundational questions:
- Where have we come from?
- Where are we now?
- Where do we need to go?