How to Fix Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss at the Same Time
Release Date: 11/07/2024
The Electro-Tech Revolution: Why the Energy Transition Is Happening Faster Than You Think
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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The Case for Adaptation: Heat Stress and the Built Environment
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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Risk as an Enabler: How Development Banks Build Climate Resilience
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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A Different Kind of Bank: How to Embed Impact in Finance
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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Protecting the Beta: Why Systemic Risk Now Shapes Investment Returns
Climate Risk Podcast
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....
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What We Learned About Climate and Nature Risk in 2025
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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Societal Collapse in a Warming World: A Risk Manager’s Lens
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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Embedding Nature Risk: Insights from a Senior Banking Professional
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
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Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis
Climate Risk Podcast
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: ...
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From Basel to Biodiversity: An Ex-Central Banker’s Take on Nature Risk
Climate Risk Podcast
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...
info_outlineHear 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.