SEASON 01, TRAILER
In order to keep the planet habitable, we need to redeploy something like nine trillion dollars in capital every year.
There are many unanswered questions about how the world’s markets and financial system will meet that monumental challenge. This show will explore them. I’m Alex Roth, host of financial climate.
The writer and climate activist Bill McKibben says we need to pressure big banks and asset managers to stop bankrolling fossil fuel expansion. But how can we do that without just pushing fossil finance from publicly traded banks to secretive or unaccountable fossil financiers like the Koch brothers or the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia?
How will the insurance industry adapt to more severe storms and fires and floods? If they can’t, how will the rest of us?
Sustainable and socially responsible investing have exploded in popularity. By some measures, about a third of assets under management are invested sustainably. But what does that really mean, and will it even help the climate?
If the world decarbonizes faster than companies expect, more than a trillion dollars in untapped oil reserves or other fossil-fuel-related assets could suddenly become stranded and worthless. Could that kind of drastic drop in asset values threaten economies and destroy wealth—like the popping of a financial bubble?
Just ten years ago, green bonds barely existed. Last year, more than half a trillion dollars worth were issued. What other innovations in finance will emerge to catalyze the transition to net zero emissions?
Between 2020 and 2021, the market for voluntary carbon credits quadrupled from about half a billion to about 2 billion. McKinsey estimates it could grow from there to be 25 times as large as soon as 2030. How do these voluntary carbon markets work, and do they have a legitimate place in the effort to decarbonize?
This year, more than one-quarter of all venture capital investment went into climate tech. How many of the coming decades’ new billionaires will be climate entrepreneurs?
The energy expert Joseph Romm has said that “Climate change will have a bigger impact on your family and friends and all of humanity than the internet has had.” But that’s just as true of the finance industry as it is for individuals. Join me every two weeks for conversations with the most insightful investors, innovators, and experts at the frontier of climate and finance.