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The insurance industry is on the front lines of climate risk. In order to write profitable policies in high-risk zones, carriers need data and insights that give them an edge – and customers who know how to build climate resiliency.
Enter Faura, an InsurTech startup co-founded by today’s guest, Valkyrie Holmes. Her team have pioneered a new way to produce “survivability” assessments – a measure of a property’s resilience to natural disasters – that has caught the attention of both insurers and real estate professionals looking to navigate an increasingly hazardous market.
Valkyrie unpacks the concept of “survivability” and its importance to those writing and seeking insurance, and explains how Faura’s assessments empower homeowners to proactively reduce their own risk. She also reflects on the insurance industry’s appetite for innovation and the challenges involved piloting a disruptive startup in a heavily regulated and complex sector.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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London has sustained a barrage of climate shocks in recent years – from devastating heat waves to flash flooding and a string of “rain bombs”.
The metropolis has to defend itself against these shocks. As the engine of the UK economy, anything that happens to the capital reverberates throughout the country. Hence the London Climate Resilience Review, a first-of-its-kind analysis commissioned by Mayor Sadiq Khan and chaired by today’s guest, Emma Howard Boyd CBE.
The Review, published earlier this year, assesses the UK capital’s climate resilience and makes over 50 recommendations on preparing the city for worsening climate impacts. Emma puts the Review in context, takes us through some of the top recommendations, and highlights the importance of joined-up governance and the sharing of best practices across cities to building long-lasting resilience.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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City leaders are up to their necks in climate risks. They need help to harden their people and places against floods, storms, and heat waves.
Why not call Adam Freed? Today’s Climate Proofers guest is a Principal at Bloomberg Associates, an organization which provides adaptation and resilience consulting to Mayors and their staff – pro bono.
Adam breaks down the reasons why cities are susceptible to climate shocks – from outdated infrastructure to rapid urban growth – and the changes in governance and governing that could help scale resilience solutions.
He also shares some success stories, like London’s flood prevention efforts and Phoenix’s ambitious shade plan, and touts the opportunities for governments, businesses, and startups that are piling into the urban resilience space.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Cities are magnets for climate risks. We’ve designed metropolises that intensify hazards like floods and extreme heat, and have to nurture and scale solutions to address their impacts – fast.
Hence the importance of accelerators: programs that support the rapid growth of new technologies for addressing climate change. Michael Jacobs oversees the IBM Sustainability Accelerator, which works to scale climate solutions from nonprofits and governmental agencies using IBM technology and AI know-how.
To date, the IBM Sustainability Accelerator has supported 15 global projects across three active cohorts focused on sustainable agriculture, clean energy, and water management. The focus of its latest cohort? Resilient cities.
Michael joins Climate Proofers to discuss how the Accelerator got its start, how participants benefit, and the massive potential of AI to build more climate-resilient cities.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Climate change is injecting volatility into geopolitics, with worrying implications for international relations and the (already fraying) rules-based order. Physical climate risks also have the potential to catalyze future geopolitical shocks – which could in turn lead to armed conflicts between nations.
Alan Leung works at the global financial institution Macquarie Group as head of the threat intelligence team, and writes the informative newsletter Securing Our Climate, which focuses on the intersection of climate change, security, geopolitics, and finance. He joins Climate Proofers to discuss the climate impacts he believes could upend global security, highlight the new geopolitical fault lines that could open up as the world warms, and describe the collision of climate change and corporate operational risk management.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Catastrophe (or ‘cat’) models are essential tools for estimating losses from natural disasters. With the rise of climate risk management as a discipline in its own right, efforts are underway to harness these tools to guess the effects of human-induced warming on hurricanes, floods, storms, and other catastrophes.
However, in the rush to develop effective climate risk analytics, we may be trying to force cat models to do things they weren’t designed to – and promoting a flawed way of thinking about the link between climate change and financial loss in the bargain.
Thomas Mortlock, from reinsurance broker and risk solutions company Aon, joins Climate Proofers to explain what cat models can and can’t do, unpack the relationship between climate risk and insured losses, and get into the knotty problem of slow-onset events, like sea-level rise.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Kathryn Brown is a true climate adaptation veteran. For the last three years, she's been tackling climate change impacts with The Wildlife Trusts, a federation of UK charities focused on making a positive difference to wildlife and future generations.
Prior to this role, she served nine years with the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent body that advises the UK government on its climate actions and researches the country's preparedness for climate shocks.
Kathryn talks about the role of climate adaptation in wildlife habitat conservation, the difficult trade-offs involved when it comes to preserving ecosystems, and her experiences working as Head of Adaptation at the CCC.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Bill Green is a veteran infrastructure investor, one who understands that we need to change our approach to building (and financing) the basic facilities and systems that undergird our daily lives in response to rising climate impacts.
As Managing Partner at Climate Adaptive Infrastructure, a fund dedicated to climate resilient, low-carbon projects, Bill and his team have pioneered a unique methodology for assessing potential investments based on their ability to withstand the 'triple threat' posed by climate change.
In this episode of Climate Proofers, Bill takes us through the fund’s process, talks about some of his recent investments, and offers his take on the current state-of-play in climate-aware infrastructure investment.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Extreme heat wrecks lives and livelihoods throughout the Global South. Women are especially vulnerable to high temperatures because of an array of physiological, cultural, and economic factors – but also find it harder to access the resources needed to increase their resilience to this peril.
Climate Resilience For All is a non-profit dedicated to the protection of women and vulnerable communities from extreme heat and all its impacts. Their tagline is: “When women are climate resilient, we will all be climate resilient,” reflecting a belief that by supporting women against heat impacts we can strengthen communities as a whole.
Kathy Baughman McLeod, the CEO of Climate Resilience For All, joins today’s episode to talk about how the group came about, the importance of promoting heat resilience among women, and what financial solutions are proving effective at supporting vulnerable populations.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Michael Berkowitz is spreading the gospel of climate resilience across academic disciplines, communities, and industries.
As Executive Director of the Climate Resilience Academy at the University of Miami, he’s responsible for driving problem-driven research and education on climate adaptation and resilience and training the next generation of climate proofers.
In this episode, he talks about the idea of “resilience dividends” — the spillover benefits that come from investing in resilience — and the ways in which they can be captured and monetized by private and public actors.
He also explores why Miami has emerged as a hub for climate resilience companies and takes us through some of the adaptation innovations being pioneered in southern Florida.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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There are few champions of the adaptation economy with a resume like Jay Koh. The storied investor racked up years in the financial industry before serving as Chief Investment Strategist at what is now the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
Koh now leads The Lightsmith Group, a global investment platform laser-focused on opportunities in the emerging adaptation economy. The private equity firm boasts a range of investments in climate-proofing technologies covering agriculture, wildfire, water, and more.
He sits down with Louie to talk about how the adaptation investment landscape has transformed in recent years, to describe Lightsmith’s investment thesis, and explain why investing in climate adaptation is a far surer bet than wagering on interest rates, inflation – and even Taylor Swift’s next boyfriend!
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Technology is crucial in the effort to prepare for, and protect from, climate risks. However, we’re still in the early stages of figuring out how to think about climate adaptation technology (or ‘CAT’) as an investment category – and how to direct early-stage capital into this vital space.
John Robinson, a technology investor with Mazarine Ventures, joins this week’s Climate Proofers to talk about his research into CAT, and go over the findings of Mazarine’s surveys of early-stage investors on this crucial theme.
Louie and John also discuss water-related climate adaptation tech, one of the hottest CAT subcategories, and dive into the market initiatives, public policies, and regulatory efforts that could spur greater engagement by VCs in climate-proofing activities.
Learn more about Mazarine Ventures at www.mazarineventures.com
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Africa is a magnet for climate risks – from floods to droughts to storms like Tropical Cyclone Freddy, which displaced half a million people in Malawi last year.
However, the continent’s vulnerability has also made it a hotbed of climate adaptation. Thousands are joining (or starting) businesses to climate-proof the continent – and investors are taking note.
In this week’s episode, Louie is joined by Maëlis Carraro, managing partner at The Catalyst Fund, a pre-seed VC fund and accelerator that supports African climate adaptation startups. They discuss how Catalyst started, the importance of adaptation-focused funds, and what startups are making waves throughout the African continent.
They also get into the landscape for blended finance and what needs to be done to crowd more private capital into climate adaptation companies.
Learn more about The Catalyst Fund at www.thecatalystfund.com.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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US home insurers suffered their worst underwriting loss this century in 2023, as claims came pouring in for storms, floods, wildfires, and more.
Inflation and the crowding of high-risk areas contributed to the red ink, but extreme weather events were also a factor. These are due to become more frequent and severe because of climate change.
Nancy Watkins specializes in climate resilience, insurtech and catastrophic property risk at Milliman, the actuarial consultancy. She joins Climate Proofers to discuss the headwinds facing the US insurance market and the resilience measures that individuals, communities, and public authorities could take to ease the emerging affordability and availability crisis.
We also examine the role of catastrophe (or ‘cat’) models in the insurance industry, and their importance in a climate-transformed world.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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In May, climate proofers from across the world gathered in New York for Adapt Unbound USA, a pioneering conference on the emerging adaptation economy.
Experts from tech, finance, and policy held forth on topics ranging from how to prepare cities for climate change to building industry-wide collaborations.
Louie was tapped to moderate the last panel of the day on closing the adaptation capital gap, with adaptation veterans Emilie Mazzacurati (Tailwind Climate), Maëlis Carraro (Catalyst Fund), Anish Patel (Yamaha Motor Ventures), and Sonam Velani (Streetlife Ventures).
Thanks to the good folk at Unbound Summits, this week’s podcast features a recording of that panel, so you can hear direct from these big hitters on what’s behind the adaptation finance gap and how to close it.
An edited transcript of the panel is also available here for those who prefer to read.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Adaptation planning is taking place at every level of the public realm. While national governments beaver away on country-wide adaptation plans, subnational and local governments are getting to grips with their own distinctive risks, opportunities, and adaptation needs.
Kit England is no stranger to local adaptation planning. Currently the senior climate resilience and adaptation specialist at Paul Watkiss Associates, Kit has over ten years’ experience in adaptation planning and implementation, most recently through the Pathways2Resilience program set up under the EU's Climate Change Adaptation Mission.
He joins Louie on the podcast to talk about his experiences and share his thoughts on the type of coordination and collaboration needed to create joined-up adaptation plans at the local level and beyond.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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“Proper planning prevents poor performance.” It’s a cheesy axiom, but one that happens to be correct. With extreme weather events on the rise, and slow onset climate risks on the march, it makes sense that organizations of all shapes and sizes are making plans in response.
S& Global Rating’s Dr Paul Munday has been at the forefront of research into company-level climate adaptation plans, and recently co-authored an in-depth report on the current state of play.
This found that just 21% of companies have adaptation plans, and that less than half of these have implementation timelines of 10 years or less.
Is this evidence that too few companies are taking climate risks seriously? A sign that adaptation and resilience are still emerging concepts in the private sector? Or a reflection of the difficulties involved with putting together climate risk assessments and articulating effective responses?
In this episode, Paul and Louie discuss the findings of the report and unpack additional research by S&P on sovereign and municipal climate risks.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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It’s a mantra all climate proofers are probably tired of repeating: adaptation needs are enormous, we need much more capital to flow into climate-proofing solutions, but investors are leery of jumping into a space they don’t understand.
This problem explains the current mania for adaptation and resilience taxonomies. These are systems for classifying activities and investments that support climate-proofing efforts. Nation-states have produced taxonomies that touch on adaptation in the past, but this year has seen a rush of tailor-made taxonomies from nonprofits and private entities alike enter the public domain.
One new entrant, poised to make its official debut later this year, is the Climate Bonds Initiative’s Resilience Taxonomy — which has been designed to help companies structure debt instruments that clearly support adaptation and resilience goals.
In this episode, Ujala Qadir of the Climate Bonds Initiative joins to discuss the Taxonomy, why it’s needed, and how it could reshape the adaptation and resilience investment landscape.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Climate adaptation technology is the hot investment theme that has in-the-know investors salivating. After all, we know the world is going to get hotter and witness ever-increasing extreme weather events even if we succeed in dramatically cutting fossil fuel emissions. This means products and services that protect against climate impacts will be in high demand.
However, being new, the climate adaptation technology space faces challenges. For one, plenty in the venture market are yet to get their arms around the concept of adaptation. For another, working out what business models are viable remains a work in progress.
In this episode, Seb Tranæus of Rally Cap VC, a venture fund focused on climate adaptation, discusses these challenges, riffs on some of his favorite startups in the space, and reflects on how the startup and policy ecosystems differ on either side of the Atlantic.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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Financial regulators are no strangers to climate change. Over the last decade, a large number of them have taken steps to enforce mandatory climate disclosures for companies and financial institutions. Some have also imposed rules on how so-called "green funds" should be labelled, and what investments they should be allowed to hold.
However, adaptation and resilience have arguably been underrepresented in the blizzard of paper coming out of regulators' offices.
Craig Davies, CEO at the climate consultancy Cadlas, joins Climate Proofers to talk about the state of financial regulation vis-a-vis adaptation, and what regulatory developments could help unlock the capital necessary to power the fledgling adaptation economy.
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Questions? Comments? Email Louie at [email protected]
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