Climate Proofers
Business og økonomiVitenskapJoin Louie Woodall, editor of Climate Proof, for round ups of the latest news on climate adaptation and resilience finance, tech, and policy and interviews with key "climate proofers" - experts working at the cutting edge of adaptation finance.
Siste episoder av Climate Proofers podcast
- Andrew Lala On Democratizing Weather Intelligence (01:05:06)
*This episode of Climate Proofers is sponsored by Ignitia* Weather intelligence is one of most exciting frontiers in adaptation and resilience tech. But market solutions rub up against an uncomfortable paradox — the people who need weather intelligence the most are often those least able to access it. It’s a tension that today’s guest, Andrew Lala, is very familiar with. As an international development and climate tech veteran with on-the-ground experience in Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria, Andrew has seen first-hand the urgent need for farmers in developing countries to get a hold of hyper-local (and hyper-accurate) weather forecasts that empower them to adapt. He’s also seen how large, supposedly sophisticated businesses — from commodity traders to agrifood majors — are operating today without a data-first approach to weather risk mitigation. These are all observations he’s bringing to Ignitia, an AI-enabled weather intelligence company producing climate and weather intelligence tools for a dizzying array of clients, from African farmers to huge ports and logistical companies. In this interview, he offers a blunt analysis of the weather intelligence space, explains why he thinks the market system around climate and weather data is “broken and fragmented”, and gives us the behind-the-scenes story of how Ignitia became a finalist for the UN-backed AI for EW4All Innovation Challenge. It’s a must-listen for climate tech founders who want to learn from Ignitia’s experiences, and for climate adaptation advocates curious about how AI can drive extreme weather resilience and preparedness within the world’s most vulnerable communities. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Prashant Mupparapu On Enabling Climate-Resilient Infrastructure (00:51:49)
The intersection of climate and finance is getting crowded, making it tougher for adaptation start-up founders to stand out. Today’s interviewee is betting there’s room for a fresh offering targeting a particularly complex branch of the financial system: infrastructure. Prashant Mupparapu, the founder of InfraSure, is building a platform to help infrastructure investors, owners, and their insurers navigate the rising costs and uncertainty associated with climate risk. Drawing on a 20-year career in energy and infrastructure finance, with experience at Citadel, Credit Suisse, and Blue Owl, Prashant believes his techie approach to infrastructure finance and risk management can stand out in the busy climate intelligence market. In this conversation, he breaks down why financial institutions have traditionally downplayed resilience investments, and what innovative structures could compel increased engagement — like ‘resilience credits’. He then explains the “risk gap” that InfraSure intends to fill, and why he believes tech should be an “enabler” rather than a “disruptor” in the climate-finance ecosystem. He also talks about widening the aperture of adaptation investment, and the importance of empowering infrastructure owners to understand the pros and cons of “renting” resilience via insurance or “owning” it via hardening investments. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Andy Love On Cooling The UK: Buildings, Shade, & Heat Resilience (00:40:16)
We spend most of our time in the built environment. If it’s not designed with climate change in mind, then we all stand to lose. Our health, our wellbeing, our productivity — all can suffer if we’re confined to spaces that can’t handle higher temperatures. Today’s guest is working on multiple fronts to make the built environment more climate resilient. Andy Love is the Co-Founder of the sustainability consultancy Love Design Studio and community interest company Shade the UK. Through these organizations, he’s pushing for changes in how buildings are designed, with an eye on promoting livable, climate-adapted spaces that center the people living in them. He joins the pod to talk about the projects he’s led on the dangers of heat in the UK — and the policies and design solutions that could help people cope better. He also unpacks the barriers to cooling Britain down and even dives into this summer’s big question: should Brits embrace air conditioning? 🔗Links: Read ‘Building Heat-Resilient Neighbourhoods’ from Shade the UK HERE Read the ‘Overheating Adaptation Guide for Homes’ HERE Read the Cooling Roadmap for the Greater London Authority and C40 Cities HERE Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Jake Rascoff & Steven Rothstein On Exposing Climate Risk In The $4 Trillion Muni Bond Market (00:50:07)
Where will the climate financial crisis hit first? Is it in corporate earnings? Equity prices? Home values? Sustainability advocacy organization Ceres sees the storm breaking in the US$4trn municipal bond market, where cities and local governments raise cash to finance everything from new infrastructure to public transit systems. In this episode of Climate Proofers, Steven Rothstein and Jake Rascoff from Ceres raise the climate alarm on this oft-forgotten corner of the financial system and make the case for why better climate risk disclosure from cities, states, and local agencies is now an investor (and issuer) imperative. The conversation highlights the disconnect between known physical risks and what’s actually being reported to investors, and makes the case for a standardized, forward-looking disclosure regime that can help communities attract capital for adaptation before disaster strikes. With federal dollars for disaster response in question, insurance markets in retreat, and climate disasters growing in frequency and severity, Rothstein and Rascoff argue that municipalities can no longer afford to underplay material climate risks in their bond offerings. If you're an investor, policymaker, or finance pro looking to better understand the climate perils facing the muni markets — this episode is for you. 🔗Links: Read ‘Leading with Transparency: A Guide to Strengthening Climate Disclosure and Resilience in the Municipal Bond Market’ HERE Read Ceres’ report on insurance climate disclosure: ‘The Measurement Gap: A Deep Dive into Climate Risk Reporting in the US Insurance Sector‘ HERE Sign up for Ceres’ next webinar on insurance HERE Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Anjana Agarwal On Adaptation Tech For Utilities (00:35:03)
It’s hard work being a start-up founder. Harder still in the climate adaptation space. First off, you’ve got the challenge of explaining to would-be clients and investors what climate adaptation actually is. Then you have to figure out what form of language moves them from curious onlookers to engaged participants. To help deal with these obstacles, founders are on the hunt for “go-to-market Sherpas” — professionals who can guide them from the “promising idea” phase to the “commercial juggernaut” stage. Today’s guest — Anjana Agarwal — is one such “Sherpa”. With her company, The Ad Hoc Group, she helps climate tech start-ups with a resilience focus navigate the complexities of regulation, procurement, and scaling in the notoriously risk-averse utility sector. In our conversation, Anjana offers a frank diagnosis of the challenges facing adaptation tech start-ups, from mismatched language between founders and their utility buyers to political and economic barriers at the state and federal level. She also highlights some of the company’s adaptation tech clients, including Pano AI and Resilient Structures, and how they’re making inroads with major utilities. It’s an episode for all you adaptation tech-heads out there, and anyone curious about how America’s utilities are grappling with the blight of worsening climate extremes. 🔗Links: Sign up to the Power Resilience Forum 2026 HERE Learn more about The Ad Hoc Group HERE Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Ben Andrews On Building An Adaptation Consultancy (00:40:20)
An awkward thing about the company Ben Andrews founded is that its name is a little out-of-date. Adapt40 is the bespoke adaptation consultancy he set up in 2021, which is today engaged in projects all over the world: from Dartmoor in the UK to the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. The ‘40’ in ‘Adapt40’ comes from 2040: the year in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted human-induced global warming would breach 1.5°C. That forecast was made back in 2018. Now, scientists believe this threshold could be crossed within the next five years. This is bad news for humanity, as it means we have even less time to prepare and protect ourselves from the extreme weather and slow-onset climate disasters that 1.5°C entails. But it has also injected fresh urgency into Adapt40’s work. On today’s episode, Ben talks about his career to date and unpacks the short, but intense, history of his consultancy. He then describes Adapt40’s “participatory approach” to building resilience with local partners and explains why adaptation is more about collaboration than competition. He also gets into the company’s secret sauce — its competence with data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) — and tells us what he really thinks about the use of AI in adaptation planning. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. **Programming Note**: Climate Proofers is taking a break this August — but will be back with a bang in September.
- Debbie Hillier On Adaptation Indicators, Finance, & The Bonn Climate Talks (00:47:36)
Eleven frantic days of negotiations at the Bonn climate talks this June yielded an important breakthrough: agreement on how to define 100 indicators for measuring global progress on adaptation. Reaching consensus was by no means easy. Adaptation is complex. After all, climate risks manifest in many, many ways and affect economic sectors, geographies, and populations differently. Political squabbles between countries also threatened to derail the process. Developing nations want indicators to track rich countries’ financial contributions to adaptation — something the latter group would rather avoid. In this episode, Debbie Hillier of Mercy Corps — who was on the ground at Bonn — joins to talk us through the negotiations’ many twists and turns, and to unpack the value of the indicator workstream to global adaptation progress. She also gets into the weeds of the long-running — and always contentious — debate on adaptation finance, and why we must hold fast to the Paris Agreement principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” if climate justice is to be realized. In addition, Debbie describes her role with the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance — a coalition of nonprofits working to improve preparedness against flooding, extreme heat, and other climate shocks — and the projects in Indonesia, Jordan, and Nepal she’s been working on with the group. It’s a wide-ranging conversation perfect for you policy wonks out there, and to all those curious about how adaptation planning and finance is being thought about at the highest levels. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. **Programming Note**: Climate Proofers is taking a break this August — but will be back with a bang in September.
- Alice Hill On Texas Floods, Trump's Anti-Resilience Budget Bill, And 'Climate Realism' (00:52:03)
For most climate-conscious folks, the world is a little more scary than it was back in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was signed. Ok, maybe a lot more scary. With a climate-denier in the White House, destructive wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, and the scaling back of emissions targets by rich countries, there’s lots for climate policy wonks — not to mention the rest of us — to be nervous about. Perhaps a change in strategy is needed. A different way to press home the importance of climate mitigation and adaptation that suits the febrile times. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) thinks it has just the ticket: the Climate Realism Initiative. With adaptation as a central pillar, the initiative promotes investing in national resilience, preparing for climate shocks at home and abroad, and navigating the geopolitical realities of climate change. In this episode, Alice Hill, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at CFR and a veteran of the Obama White House, joins to discuss the new program — and some of the controversy it has generated in climate policy circles. Alice also shares her snap analysis of President Trump’s newly signed “big, beautiful bill,” which guts clean energy tax incentives and climate resilience projects, and offers her reflections on the horrific flash floods in Texas, which have claimed over 100 lives. She then digs into why the US needs a “Manhattan Project" for climate risk modeling and much, much more investment in adaptation innovation if it is to survive and thrive. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 📚Read Alice's essay 'The Adaptation Imperative' at Foreign Affairs 📚 Learn about the Climate Realism Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations
- Jonathan Cook & Jainey Bavishi On The State of Adaptation Post-Biden (00:33:04)
It’s been 161 days since President Trump’s second inauguration. In that time, US climate adaptation policy has been utterly transformed — and not for the better. Today’s episode — recorded at the recent Adapt Unbound 2025 conference in New York — unpacks how the Trumpian crusade against climate science, overseas aid, and the federal government writ large is undermining US — and global — climate resilience. Jonathan Cook, formerly Senior Resilience and Adaptation Advisor at USAID, and Jainey Bavishi, formerly Deputy Administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), explore the administration’s gutting of the US’s adaptation initiatives and hollowing out of critical climate data infrastructure. They assess what’s been lost, what can still be salvaged, and where new opportunities for action lie. They also get into the real-world implications of losing public goods like open-source climate data, and what the retreat of federal leadership on climate adaptation means for the states, regions, and the private sector. It’s a sobering listen, but an essential one for those wanting to understand where US climate adaptation goes from here. 👀 Adapt Unbound is coming to Europe! Join public and private sector leaders shaping the future of climate adaptation and resilience in Amsterdam this October 14 & 15. Learn more HERE Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Katie Walsh On Financing the $86 Billion City Climate Gap (00:43:38)
Climate change is placing cities under siege. This week alone, urban sprawls across North America, Europe, and Asia are sweltering under extreme temperatures and bracing for heavy storms and flood-bringing rains. They need cold, hard cash to build up their defenses. But data from CDP — the OG environmental disclosure platform — shows a US$86bn funding shortfall for climate-resilient infrastructure. How can this gap be closed? And how can improved data help unlock capital for adaptation at the city level? Katie Walsh, CDP’s Head of Climate Finance for Cities, States, and Regions — and North America Lead — joins the pod to offer some answers. She shares what she’s learned over nearly ten years at the non-profit, reflecting on the evolution of climate disclosures at the corporate and city level and how they have helped build a picture of climate risk and opportunity. She also highlights the hard work underway to make climate data more useful for real-world decisions — from project planning to investment strategies. Katie then break down the CDP’s recent strategic shake-up and its pivot toward smarter tech and AI to boost data quality and usability. If you’re curious about the intersection of climate data, public finance, and real-world resilience, this is the episode for you. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 📚 To learn more about CDP’s 2024 Global Snapshot on Cities (developed in partnership with the Global Covenant of Mayors), you can read the report here. You can find the full list of projects seeking financing and funding from the 2024 disclosure to CDP-ICLEI Track available on the CDP Open Data page. Keep an eye out for an upcoming report to be released by the Network for Greening the Financial System G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group which utilizes CDP data to demonstrate how companies are putting their adaptation and resilience into their transition plans. It will be made available on Insights - CDP. CDP’s reporting window is now open - go to the CDP Portal to begin disclosing now. Our Help Center provides further resources. Join CDP for the CDP Reporting Tips for Local, State, and Regional Governments on July 15 at 1 pm ET for an overview of the questionnaire, and tips on reporting in 2025. Register here.
- Garrett Kephart On Scaling Climate Intelligence Through Spatial Finance (00:37:14)
What does it take to build a cutting-edge climate strategy firm? For Garrett Kephart, CEO and Co-Founder of Earth Finance, years of experience paddling through the Canadian wilderness and trekking the mountains of the Western US came in handy. As a seasoned outdoorsman, Kephart learned the importance of adapting to changing environments and making decisions under pressure — lessons he’s transferred over to his work building a top climate adaptation and transition strategy company. In this episode, Kephart gives us the lowdown on Earth Finance, describing its beginnings in the heyday of the Biden administration and its subsequent evolution as corporate priorities have shifted. He talks about the recent acquisition of Climate Engine — a pioneer in spatial finance technology — and how these capabilities are helping clients better understand and respond to physical climate risks. The conversation also unpacks how AI is transforming the consulting model, enabling faster and deeper analysis of climate risks and opportunity. Kephart offers a nuanced view on the promise and pitfalls of AI, stressing the need for “ground truth” and local engagement to validate the findings of high-tech models and data feeds. Looking ahead, he highlights the current adaptation priorities of companies and the sectors that are already coming under pressure, while explaining how Earth Finance is positioning itself to be the one-stop shop for climate-proofing their operations. It’s a conversation that the climate consulting crowd and geospatial community won’t want to miss! Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Yue (Nina) Chen On Embedding Climate Risk Into Bank Supervision (00:44:18)
There are few things more devastating to a country’s economy than a full-blown financial crisis. In the US, the memory of the near-implosion of the banking industry in 2008-2009 is seared into the minds of policymakers. It may be hard to recall just how calamitous that event was with fifteen years distance — but at its nadir the US unemployment rate surged to 10%, and economic output shrank 4.3%. No wonder regulators are preoccupied with avoiding a repeat. One potential vector for a future crisis is unaddressed climate risk. An ever-growing barrage of extreme weather events — coupled with intensifying slow-onset events like sea-level rise and temperature variability — could disrupt bank portfolios and trigger cascading losses throughout the financial system, reviving the specter of 2008. During the Biden administration, bank watchdogs took steps to guard lenders and savings associations from these hazards and encourage financial institutions to level up their climate risk management capabilities. One of these regulators is today’s guest, Yue ‘Nina’ Chen, who served as Chief Climate Risk Officer at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency from 2022 until January of this year. In this episode, Nina shares how she built the OCC’s climate risk function from the ground up, educating lenders and bank supervisors alike on the challenges that a warmer, more volatile climate poses to financial stability. We discuss her role developing and implementing the regulator’s climate risk principles for large institutions — which offered first-of-its-kind guidance to Wall Street giants on climate-proofing their portfolios — and integrating climate considerations into the OCC’s supervisory practices. She also shares her thoughts on the future of bank climate risk management now the Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to climate resilience efforts across the federal government and explains why she thinks lenders need to improve their modeling and analysis of physical climate threats. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Paige Roepers On Geospatial Data For Coastal Resilience (00:50:52)
Climate change is giving the coasts one hell of a beating. Rising oceans and worsening seaborne tempests are chipping away at our shorelines, degrading coastal ecosystems, and putting trillions of dollars of property, infrastructure, and water-based commerce at risk. The fast-changing vulnerability of coastal economies is a nightmare for insurers in particular, which are wrestling with how to model flood and erosion risks given the climate-induced tumult. Ocean Ledger is here to help. In this episode of Climate Proofers, Paige Roepers — CEO and Co-Founder of the geospatial analytics start-up — joins to explain how cutting-edge remote sensor tech and satellites, together with data-crunching models, are transforming our understanding of coastal risk, and unlocking new pathways for climate adaptation finance and insurance. We plunge into Paige’s eclectic personal story, from her early passion for marine biology (including an early career stint as a research diver in Indonesia) to her years in investment banking at Barclays. This unusual blend of field science and finance sparked the insight that led her to found Ocean Ledger. We then get into the weeds of Ocean Ledger’s applications for insurance and finance — and the potential for geospatial analytics to advance nature-based solutions and unleash financial innovation. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Laurie Schoeman On Why Adaptation Needs A Seat At The Top Table (00:49:58)
Who better to star in our 50th episode than Laurie Schoeman? Laurie is a highly respected champion of climate resilience, housing policy, and sustainable investment in the US — with a career that’s taken her from construction projects in San Francisco to the heart of the White House. For two years, she served under President Biden: first, as Senior Advisor for Climate Risk and Resilience, and then as a Senior Housing Policy Advisor. In these roles, she leveraged the power of the Oval Office to support nationwide resilience efforts and unlock adaptation finance. Now, she serves as Chief Investment and Impact Officer at Partners for the Common Good, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) that provides low-cost, patient capital to low-income communities. She’s also an important voice in the effort to make Los Angeles more resilient in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires. In her role on the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery, set up by LA County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Laurie is advising on how to build back homes, businesses, and infrastructure to better withstand fires and other catastrophes. In today’s episode, we cover a lot of ground — from the very different climate adaptation policies of Trump and Biden, to the challenges on the ground in LA, to the importance of CDFIs amid a wholesale rollback of federal funding. Laurie even shares her thoughts on the importance of the new American Pope in providing moral leadership at a time when so little seems to be in evidence. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Jo Kerr & Jonny Casey On Climate-Proofing Scotland (01:01:13)
Scotland is a beautiful, wild, and dynamic country. It’s also one of many facing a barrage of climate risks that, if left unchecked, threaten to harm its people and hobble its economy over time. Verture is working to prevent this. The Scottish charity — formerly known as Sniffer — leverages cross-sector, cross-community collaborations to build climate resilience up and down the country. They’ve got their work cut out for them. Scotland is dealing with higher winter rainfall, an increasing number of damaging wind storms, more heat extremes, worsening drought risks…. the list goes on. In this episode, Verture CEO Jo Kerr and Head of Climate Ready Leadership Jonny Casey talk us through this growing climate risk exposure and describe how the charity is preparing Scotland’s population and economy to meet a more dangerous future. They unpack Verture’s experience working with multiple levels of government and a mishmash of stakeholders to support enduring regional adaptation partnerships — like Climate Ready Clyde and Highland Adapts —that promote local ownership and community buy-in. Then, Jo explains the five core principles that drive Verture’s collaborations, from place-based design to just resilience, while Jonny reflects on the role private finance and technology can play in supporting public sector efforts to build system-wide resilience. For those eager to learn how a leading non-profit is driving climate resilience at the local, regional, and national scale — this is the episode for you. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Josh Hacker On The Evolution Of Climate Risk Models (00:43:32)
What does it really take to model climate risk in a way that businesses and financial institutions can use? In this episode, Josh Hacker — Chief Science Officer at Jupiter Intelligence — joins to talk about how the climate risk modeling discipline has evolved in the eight-or-so years since the company’s founding, and the lessons learnt along the way on the importance of transparency and accountability. He dives into the challenges reconciling clients’ appetite for actionable data with the inherent uncertainty of climate risk model outputs, and discusses how and why competition in the climate risk analytics space is hotting up. It's a rare chance to hear from a climate scientist who also knows his way around the tech and finance spaces, too — making this a must-listen. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Sarah Farrell On Financing The "Resilience Continuum" (00:53:46)
Time is not on our side. Climate risks are here, and are only getting worse. To protect and prepare vulnerable communities, we need finance to rush in at speed and in scale. Impatience Earth, as the name suggests, isn't waiting around to see this done. The UK-based nonprofit provides pro-bono advice to philanthropic funders looking to enhance their climate strategies — and get their money moving now. On today's episode, Sarah Farrell, Climate Philanthropy Advisory Director at Impatience Earth, explains why philanthropic investment in climate resilience represents “a leap of faith” that she and her team are working to get more funders comfortable with. She speaks to the different strategies used to coax wary funders to embrace this still poorly understood niche, and explains why it's so important that progressive donors adopt a more venture capital mindset to supporting resilience initiatives. She also shares her latest work with the nonprofit SouthSouthNorth on promoting the “Resilience Continuum”, a financing framework that seeks to move donors beyond the tired adaptation-mitigation binary and channel dollars into community-level resilience for the long term. It's a terrific conversation for all those engaged in the tough, but essential, work of moving philanthropic capital into the adaptation and resilience space. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 📰 Read the Impatience Earth / SouthSouthNorth article on the "Resilience Continuum" HERE
- Washington Insurance Commissioner Kuderer On Her Climate Risk Priorities (00:30:44)
Commissioner Patty Kuderer has been in office for 104 days. She’s got a lot on her plate. As Washington’s top insurance official, Kuderer is responsible for overseeing the more than 800 insurers in the state and protecting policy holders from unfair practices. She’s also driving her office to address climate risks to the local insurance market and championing legislation that could harden homeowners and whole communities against floods and wildfires. In this episode, she shares how her office is tackling the mounting challenges of insurance affordability and availability in the face of climate-driven hazards. She explains her philosophy of prevention-first regulation and outlines new initiatives, including efforts to collect and analyze wildfire and non-renewal data and promote consumer education of climate threats to their insurance coverage. Kuderer also reflects on the structural barriers to more coordinated resilience efforts, including legislative gridlock and political resistance to climate action. She shares her concerns about the weakening of federal agencies like FEMA and NOAA, and makes a strong case for the importance of state-level leadership while a climate-denier inhabits the White House. This episode offers a front-line perspective from a top regulator confronting climate threats to the insurance system. It's essential listening for InsurTechs, NGOs, and policymakers working to meet this moment. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Jyotsna Puri On Rethinking Adaptation Finance (00:48:24)
Few have insights into the global adaptation finance landscape like Jyotsna “Jo” Puri — economist, climate finance expert, and Director of Policy and Programs at the UN Environment Programme. With a career spanning the Green Climate Fund, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jo offers a rare insider’s look at how multilateral institutions are grappling with climate adaptation — and why so many are falling short. In this episode of Climate Proofers, Jo explains how she led IFAD to adopt an adaptation-first agenda, shares what she learned from years as the inaugural head of the Independent Evaluation Unit at the GCF, and offers her candid thoughts on how adaptation finance can be mainstreamed across public and private financial institutions. We also dig into Jo’s concept for “resilience credits” — a system that could create investable, measurable adaptation outcomes in the Global South. She’s also unsparing in her critique of current global financial rules, from capital adequacy ratios for banks to loan-loss provisions, that penalize investment in vulnerable communities. She argues that the global financial architecture must evolve to reward resilience and lays out a vision for rewriting important rulebooks like the International Financial Reporting Standards and Basel Standards to reflect adaptation and resilience impact. It’s a must-listen episode for all those working at the intersection of climate finance, development, and institutional reform. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Susan Crawford On How The US Government Is Failing Adaptation (00:49:56)
The Trump White House is taking a hammer to the federal agencies, programs, and initiatives that promote climate adaptation and resilience. As part of its chaotic effort to shrink the size of government and eliminate any and all climate work by the US government, Trump's team is gutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the country’s premier climate agency, abolishing grants that states and cities use to build resilience against extreme weather events, and even directing government lawyers to go after state-level laws that promote climate mitigation and adaptation. These policies all serve to undermine US climate readiness, and run counter to another Trump administration goal — making disaster preparedness and response a state, local, and individual responsibility, instead of something led from Washington, DC. In today’s episode, climate adaptation scholar Susan Crawford reflects on Trump’s anti-climate policies to date and what they mean for the country. Susan is an emeritus professor at Harvard Law School and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She writes regularly about the intersection of climate change and finance over on the Substack Moving Day. In 2009, she served as special assistant to President Obama for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. Beyond policy, Susan talks about the financial architecture that underpins US climate resilience: municipal bonds and insurance markets. She warns of mounting risks in the muni bond market because of the current tariff chaos, potential tax policy changes, and investors’ failure to figure climate hazards into their pricing. She also flags the slow-motion collapse of affordable insurance in high climate risk areas — and explains how local governments, desperate to protect their tax bases, are often incentivized to downplay or ignore escalating threats. Whether you’re a climate finance pro, work in local government, policy development, or climate risk analysis, this episode is essential listening. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 🗞️ Sign up to Susan's newsletter Moving Day HERE.
- Sonam Velani On Why Cities Are The Frontlines Of Climate Adaptation (00:44:07)
Cities are getting hammered by climate shocks. These concrete jungles are highly exposed to extreme weather events and slow-onset climatic changes — from wildfires (Los Angeles) to floods (Nashville, Lagos, Karachi) to heatwaves (Delhi, Houston, Madrid). This exposure is only going to increase. Roughly half the world’s population live in urban areas today, but their share is due to exceed 70% by 2050. Sonam Velani is on a mission to get cities ready for a hotter and wilder world. Sonam is the Co-Founder of Streetlife Ventures, a specialist VC fund that’s reimagining how and where we invest to build climate resilience into the bones of our cities, systems, and societies. In this episode, she brings a sharp, systems-thinking lens to the climate challenge facing cities, drawing on her career on Wall Street, at the World Bank, and in New York’s City Hall to explain what’s needed to make urban environments survive and thrive in a climate-adjusted future. She also lays out her thesis for what makes a VC-ready adaptation startup, and offers a glimpse into Streetlife’s diverse portfolio of exciting early-stage companies. Whether you’re a founder, investor, or simply adaptation-curious — this episode is a must-listen. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 🗞️ Sign up to Sonam’s Climate Tech Cities newsletter HERE
- Theo Bachrach On Championing Corporate Climate Resilience (00:45:30)
Theo Bachrach is a resilience professional par excellence. Over the last five years, he’s worked for not one, not two, but three organizations with ‘Resilience’ in the title, and helped coordinate a UN-backed campaign that has brought hundreds of companies, cities, and other non-state parties together to harden our world to climate shocks — the Race to Resilience. He joins Climate Proofers to share his professional journey in adaptation-and-resilience-land, discuss the legacy of the Race to Resilience campaign, and go deep on his current project: a new Model for Organizational Resilience. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. 👉 Read Resilience First's Model for Organizational Resilience HERE
- Oliver Wing On the Future of Flood Risk Modeling (00:40:40)
What if we could map every river, every coastline, and every floodplain on Earth — and use that knowledge to build a more climate-resilient future? It sounds ambitious, but this is exactly what UK-based Fathom has set out to do. The flood and climate risk intelligence company recently launched its Global Flood Cat model, capable of modeling all major flood perils — from burst riverbanks to coastal storm surges. Moreover, it can quantify the financial risk of these floods to all kinds of assets. This data is invaluable to insurers, banks, and other financial institutions nervous about how more frequent and severe floods could affect their portfolios. In today’s episode, Louie sits down with Dr. Oliver Wing, Chief Scientist at Fathom, to explore how cutting-edge flood modeling is transforming how we understand — and prepare for — climate risk. The conversation digs into where flooding happens and who gets hurt, unpacking the myriad variables that shape how floods impact real assets and financial institutions alike. Ollie also offers his frank perspective on the flood risk modeling community as a whole, explaining why transparency is the not-so-secret sauce to Fathom’s success to date. If you're curious about the intersection of climate science, risk modeling, and the pursuit of adaptation at scale, this conversation is for you. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.
- Carolyn Kousky On Building Resilience Through Insurance (00:45:35)
Dr. Carolyn Kousky is a true believer in the power of insurance for building climate resilience. So much so that she recently founded Insurance for Good, a new nonprofit dedicated to harnessing insurance for social and environmental resilience. In this episode, Carolyn — who also serves as Associate Vice President for Economics and Policy at the Environmental Defense Fund — talks about this new initiative and shares her insights into the evolving role of insurance in climate resilience, disaster recovery, and financial protection. She and Louie also get into the weeds of recent climate disasters, like the Los Angeles wildfires, and dive into the challenges incentivizing local governments and individuals alike to invest in climate-proofing measures. They then discuss the pressures on state-convened insurers-of-last-resort and the promise of alternative models of insurance — like parametric approaches — for addressing the growing climate protection gap. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news. Are you in London on Wednesday March 19? Want to hang with Climate Adaptation Tech professionals over drinks? Then come to our networking event, co-hosted with Mazarine Climate! Sign up here👇 https://lu.ma/tt34xqh6
- Avinash Persaud On Unlocking Development Banks' Potential For Adaptation (00:52:46)
Avinash Persaud isn’t afraid to tell the hard truths on adaptation finance. At a conference in Brasilia last month, the Special Advisor on Climate Risks to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) told delegates that trillions of dollars of private money for adaptation were unlikely to materialize, and that attention should be turned instead to maximizing the finance provided by multilateral development banks (MDBs). In today’s episode, Avinash lays out his thinking on scaling adaptation finance using extra-long-term MDB loans, complete with flexible conditions — like climate-resilient debt clauses — that make it easier for developing countries to take on debt for climate-proofing purposes. He also details innovative donor-backed financing models that reward countries for successfully completing resilience projects, a new spin on the blended finance transactions that are taking adaptation-world by storm. Whether you're an investor, policymaker, or climate advocate, this episode has something for you. Sign up to climateproof.news for more news and insights on climate adaptation finance, tech, and policy. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie@climateproof.news.