Beyond 1.5°C: How to Think About Our New Climate Reality

Release Date: 05/29/2025

(Part 3) 100th Episode Special: Is Finance Ready for the Risks Ahead?

Climate Risk Podcast

Part three of this three-part special asks what seven years of climate risk have taught finance, where the sector’s limits lie, and why there are reasons for optimism. In the final part of our 100th episode miniseries, we turn to the financial system and the risk profession itself. Over the past seven years, banks, insurers, asset owners/managers, regulators and risk professionals have all had to grapple with a rapidly evolving understanding of climate and nature risk. The financial sector has developed new tools, products and approaches to climate and nature risk. But major...

(Part Two) 100th Episode Special: We Know the Risks. So Why Aren’t We Moving Faster?

Climate Risk Podcast

Part two of this three-part special looks back at seven years of climate policy to ask what has worked, what has fallen short, and whether the response is keeping pace with the risks. In the second part of our 100th episode miniseries, we turn from the science to the response. Over the past seven years, governments, regulators and markets have introduced a huge range of policies, frameworks and commitments aimed at accelerating the transition. But how effective have they really been? From the limitations of the COP process and the politics of carbon pricing...

(Part One) 100th Episode Special: Seven Years of Climate Risk — What Have We Learned?

Climate Risk Podcast

Part one of this three-part special looks back at the seven years of the podcast to ask what we have learnt about the science, what surprised us, and what comes next. Seven years and 100 episodes after the Climate Risk Podcast began, we’re taking the opportunity to step back and ask what we have learned, what has changed, and what the years ahead may hold. In the first part of this special three-part miniseries, we return to the science. From climate tipping points and cascading risks to the role of oceans,...

Unlocking Transition Finance: Policy, Credibility and the Flow of Capital

Climate Risk Podcast

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...

Fire and Flood: Lessons from Britain’s New World of Extremes

Climate Risk Podcast

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...

The Serious Business of Climate Comedy: How to Engage New Audiences

Climate Risk Podcast

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...

Investor Climate Action: What Finance Can and Can’t Achieve

Climate Risk Podcast

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...

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...

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...

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...

More Episodes

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.

Speaker’s Bio

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