Climate Risk Data and Analytics Tools: An Infographic
As the relationship between climate change and financial risk become more apparent, the ability of firms to assess climate risk for their unique needs is becoming increasingly important. Assessing climate-related risks can help firms with their own investment and strategic decision-making, overall risk management, and may become important to [...]
NYC Climate Week 2021 Lineup of Virtual Events
Climate Finance Advisors (CFA) is excited to share our NYC Climate Week 2021 lineup of virtual events. Join in on discussions with high-level keynote speakers, starting today (Tuesday, September 21). “The Great Repricing”, a four-day virtual event hosted by TheIMPACT Conference and Gitterman Asset Management, which will bring together [...]
Why the new IPCC report is also a ‘code red’ for finance
By Stacy Swann, Alan Miller, and Darius Nassiry Earlier this week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report "Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis." The report was based on over 14,000 studies by hundreds of scientists from 66 countries and represents a significant update to [...]
US businesses face a sea change on climate risk management and disclosure
By Stacy Swann The Biden administration is reportedly preparing an executive order that will require federal agencies to measure, manage, and disclose climate risks — and which, by extension, likely signals new rules for financial institutions and for companies working in sectors from energy to agriculture. Meanwhile, the Federal [...]
New report: Protecting low-income communities through climate insurance
By Will Bugler (Acclimatise) & Andrew Eil (Climate Finance Advisors) This article also appears on the Acclimatise website here. Since 2015, the InsuResilience Investment Fund (IIF) has worked to build the climate resilience of poor and climate-vulnerable households as well as micro, small and medium enterprises, by increasing climate insurance [...]
How Cities Can Access Financing for the Green Recovery
With prudent financial management, long-range strategic planning, and savvy alliance-building locally and in the corridors of government, cities can better tap into public and private funds that increasingly are targeting green and sustainable outcomes. To help cities bankroll the green and just COVID-19 recovery, a new report serves as a [...]
Why Cities Need the COVID-19 Stimulus to be Green – and How It’s Not Green Enough
The fiscal response to COVID-19 is estimated globally at US$12 to US$15 trillion committed, but cities may have trouble accessing it, and only 3%-5% of announced funding is identifiably ‘green’. As the global COVID-19 pandemic approaches the one-year mark and much of the world girds for a worsening wave of [...]
How Can Climate Finance Help Secure the Resilience of Low-Income Communities?
This op-ed originally appeared on Triple Pundit in two parts: Part 1, Part 2 Co-written with Joyce Coffee In 2020, the world’s poor find themselves at the nexus of two crises: COVID-19 and climate change. The populations most vulnerable to COVID-19 – low-income individuals, women, informal workers and minorities [...]
Science and data analytics can illustrate climate-related financial risks. COVID-19 might show us what climate risk will “feel” like.
News out in the last two weeks has illustrated the dramatic impacts of COVID-19 on the overall economy. In the US, GDP contracted by 4.8 percent in the first quarter, and unemployment is at depression-era levels. The European Commission has released forecasts for a "recession of historic proportions", projecting a [...]
The Role of Securities Regulators and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) in Promoting Climate Risk Mainstreaming
In the shadow of our collective COVID19 experience, it is clearer that financial policy frameworks will need to be enhanced to reinforce our resilience to exogenous shocks, including those brought about by climate change. Financial policies and frameworks that promote transparent information necessary for financing for low-carbon, climate-resilient investment will [...]
For Solving Tough Problems, Government Always Matters – How We Invest Matters Too
COVID-19 reminds us that government has a critical role to promote the greater good of everyone, not only a few. Governments across the world (both national and local) and the policies they promote have always had the potential to make the difference in our ability to solve tough problems. Importantly, [...]
Mind the Protection Gap: Where Finance Fits in Solving the Climate Vulnerability of the Poor
Last week, an opinion article in the Washington Post by Robert Samuelson somewhat skeptically noted that recent announcements by BlackRock and other financial institutions were not a substitute for strong, unequivocal policy direction to address climate change. Samuelson was correct on one front: There is a desperate need for policy [...]
Addressing Climate Change: The Financial Sector Reaches a Tipping Point
As the toll of climate risk events climbs, the finance sector is at a crossroads of conventional wisdom and best practices. This year, in the weeks following devastating Australian fires and unprecedented flooding in Indonesia, climate-related risks dominate the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2020 top five long-term risks. [...]
Financing Climate-Resilient Community Infrastructure in the Age of Adaptation
Stakes are high for communities that have already started experiencing extreme rain, storm events, or wildfires. In the past three years, climate damage has cost the world $650 billion, two-thirds of which was covered by North America alone, and if trends continue, the damage could reach hundreds of billions of [...]
Signals that Financial Policymakers in the U.S. are Starting to Focus on Climate Risk
To say that climate change has the potential to threaten financial stability is not news. 2020 will mark five years since Mark Carney’s famous speech about the Tragedy of the Horizons, which highlighted the short-termism inherent in most financial decision making – both by investors and policymakers – as perhaps [...]
Adjust, Align, Accelerate: What the Financial Sector Must Do to Deliver Resilience to Climate Change
Across the globe, physical climate impacts have become more pronounced and damaging in recent years, with grave implications for many vulnerable people and societies. The four-year period between 2015 and 2018 has been confirmed as the hottest on record and was replete with extreme weather triggered or exacerbated by climate [...]
Bringing Climate Science to Local Decisionmakers Can Unlock Finance for Building Resilience
While it is a certainty that climate change is already affecting society, the exact timeframes and potential impacts are far from straightforward to determine. Further, the most efficient and effective actions to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts require complex analysis and planning, often extending beyond the capacity of [...]
Climate Risk Disclosure is Critical – But not the Whole Ballgame
At the beginning of April, Chair of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Hans Hoogervorst gave a speech expressing his views that sustainability reporting is insufficient to incite change, and that more concrete steps need to be taken to address climate change. The IASB is the premier private-sector entity establishing [...]
NGFS and Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action Put Financial Markets Front and Center
April was a big month for international cooperation in the financial sector to tackle climate change. Two new supranational groups made major strides: The Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) published its first comprehensive report on addressing climate risk through financial oversight, and the Coalition [...]
Filling Gaps in the Financial Ecosystem for Energy Access Requires Financing the Last Mile
Sub-Saharan Africa, a land of abundant energy resources and roughly 750 million people, is the least electrified region in the world. Two out of every three people there are in desperate need of reliable and affordable energy supply to power their homes and workplaces. Across the region, 60% of the [...]
The Global Cooling Prize and Montreal Protocol take Steps to Unlock the Potential of Cooling Efficiency
On Friday, November 22, the U.S. government released volume two of the fourth National Climate Assessment, which underscores staggering climate damages to the country that loom in the near future. NCA4 also calculates that aggressive risk mitigation actions can avoid $500 billion in adverse effects annually by 2090 in the [...]
Science has given the Financial Sector a Clear Horizon to Act on Climate Change
From a financial perspective, the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, issued on Monday by the UN, should raise alarm bells. The IPCC report – which reflects the consensus of ninety-one scientists from 40 countries and drawn from more than 6,000 studies – has very clearly laid out our [...]
To Address Rising Sea Levels and Depressed Home Values on the East Coast, Resilient Infrastructure Investment Is Needed
October 9, 2018 This weekend, Bloomberg published a stunning article on the imperiled state of Miami-Dade’s fresh water supply due to rising seas. This reportage threw into stark relief a welter of climate change-related threats to coastal communities and private real estate holdings, particularly on the Atlantic seaboard of the [...]
How do you make the financial business case for the private sector to invest in resilience?
October 3, 2018 Last week’s Climate Week NYC played host to 35 official events on private investment for climate change and countless satellite gatherings, from the Sustainable Investment Forum to Climate Infrastructure. The topic has gained currency as municipal governments grapple with deferred maintenance of infrastructure, public pension liabilities, and [...]
As Climate Risk Looms for the Financial Industry, Governments at all Levels Spring into Action
September 12, 2018 True market transformation often requires parallel and, in a perfect world, coordinated efforts by both policy makers and industry. The financial sector plays a key role in catalyzing these efforts. More often than not, this effort requires true leadership, courage, and vision that cannot be taken for [...]