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...
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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...
info_outlineHear 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.