Beyond 1.5°C: How to Think About Our New Climate Reality
Release Date: 05/29/2025
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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
info_outlineHear 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.