An Earth Day 2020 talk, delivered to Lehigh University by Joseph Robertson, on the 50th annual Earth Day—April 22, 2020. Integrative Geopolitics: Climate Resilience in a Post-COVID World This online event is the keynote for Lehigh’s Earth Week 2020 Celebration, with support from the Office of Sustainability, in collaboration with the Environmental Initiative, Environmental Studies…
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We are entering a new age for the Earth’s climate and for the way we conceive of finance. “Macrocritical resilience” is a wonky way of talking about reducing risk and achieving health in areas of activity that affect everything you live and strive for. It is a common sense idea: the underlying foundations of value…
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We are living through historic—and perilous—separation of high finance from everyday experience. Accelerating climate disruption is a symptom of the unaccountability that comes with such disconnections. And yet, central banks’ efforts to mitigate climate risk and build resilience will affect you personally. When food is scarce, prices rise; this is one of the most significant…
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The biggest growth opportunity in finance is climate-aligned investment and innovation. In 2018, all major asset classes struggled to earn. Cash was the asset class that expanded the most, signaling a pull-back from new investment and a wait-and-see attitude. In 2019, trade tensions spurred worries of a global economic slowdown that could lead to recession.…
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REPORT FROM DAVOS The World Economic Forum has identified all 5 of the leading global risks as related to climate and environment: Extreme weather Climate action failure Natural disasters Biodiversity loss Human-made environmental disasters Climate breakdown is accelerating, and global carbon emissions are not declining. The loss of climate stability is not a small or…
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Tracking of interacting compounding risks shows higher value of financing external returns. Resilience is the ability to weather and emerge from shock events. Resilience intelligence is the complex work of understanding whether we are positioned to do so. Structured, evolving guidance, rooted in Earth systems science, is critical for achieving reliable ongoing operational resilience. The…
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Studies of significant changes to the Jet Stream—a fast-moving river of air that plays a major role in regulating climate patterns—show increasing risk of prolonged catastrophic drought and threats to the human food supply. Scientific American is reporting: extreme jet stream patterns like those of 2018 may be getting more common and more extreme, representing…
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2020 New Year’s Letter from Geoversiv’s Founder Dear Friends, As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, Geoversiv aims to reiterate the importance of embracing complexity, committing to critical thinking, and supporting the spread of creative collaborative innovation for social good and the health and wellbeing of people and planetary systems. In 2019,…
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The Resilience Intel initiative is a coalition effort to develop critical analysis, aggregated reporting strategies, financial innovation, and technological platforms to support the expansion of climate-smart finance to encompass all mainstream finance. The Resilience Intel Charter maps out a strategy to: Network science data to finance, Build climate intelligence, Track external returns on investment, and…
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How much do we value human freedom? For thousands of years people of all variety of experience and influence have debated whether free will exists and which universe would be more full of virtue and good fortune—one that is fated or one that is free. Today, technology is flooding our experience with hard-to-trace information and…
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A week before Christmas, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, wrote in the Financial Times that the UK is now stress-testing banks for climate risk and resilience. Specifically, he writes: Modelling for the full extent of climate-related financial risk is complex and challenging. Britain can lead the way next year, when we…
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COP25 Closing Statement from the Citizens’ Climate delegation The future of humankind will be shaped and defined by how well we manage our relationship to the climate system. Nations that move too slowly are ensuring they will face higher costs, expanded vulnerability, and reduced benefit from international cooperation. The Citizens’ Climate delegation came into the…
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