Roundtable Series: Living with 2°C Plus – The Climate Change Adaptation Challenge
Event description
Living in a world of more than 2°C above pre-industrial temperatures will present a host of challenges to water, food, health, infrastructure, ecosystems, social equity, cultural heritage and more. All of these impacts will have costs. Current indications are that we are heading for at least a 2.5°C warmer world.
The Monash Green Lab roundtables, held in collaboration with the U.S. National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), will bring together leading international and Australian thinkers from government, business and community sectors.
Roundtable 5: New perspectives on financing the adaptation challenge
Time:
Thursday, 31 July at 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM (AEST).
For participants in China, the roundtable will take place on Thursday, 31 July at 8:00 AM (CST)
For US participants, the roundtable will take place on Wednesday, 30 July at 5:00 PM Pacific Time, and 8:00 PM U.S Eastern Time.
Without money, adaptation doesn’t happen. We know that too little is happening in most parts of the world. The adaptation finance gap is estimated at being between $187 and $359 billion per year. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has made it clear lack of finance is blocking adaptation even in developed countries.
In this roundtable we bring together a range of perspectives on the adaptation challenge; the value of investing in adaptation for both government and private investors, value creation through adaptation investment and, opportunities for investors – sovereign bonds, green bonds, private subscription, venture capital and more.
Host: Adjunct Senior Research Fellow Michael Spencer, Green Lab, Impact Labs, Monash Business School
Speakers:
Tao Wang is Lead Environmental Specialist at the World Bank in Washington DC, with over 25 years of experience in climate and environmental finance. He has extensive, hands-on experience with major international climate funds, including the Green Climate Fund, the Climate Investment Funds, and various carbon finance mechanisms. Currently, he leads the World Bank’s climate and nature finance engagements in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
Miles Murphy is senior research analyst with the Centre for Intergovernmental Partnerships at the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)in Washington DC. He and colleagues at NAPA completed a report last October on financing strategies for local government to address local level climate impacts.
Wenhong Xie is head of the China program of the Climate Bonds Initiative in Beijing where in addition to managing research reports for government, multilateral organisations, underwriters and institutional investors, he provides advice on green bonds issuance including the recently launched China green sovereign bond.
Gordon Noble is Research Director at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures in Sydney where he focuses on sustainable finance research. He has long experience in finance industry and was previously head of policy and advocacy at the Australian Sustainable Finance Initiative where he co-authored the Australian Sustainable Finance roadmap.
Supreya Kesavan is based in New York and part of the team at The Resiliency Company set up to mobilise funding, policies and innovation to shift markets and minds toward resilience. They recently launched The Resilient LA Delta Fund designed to marshal finance required to rebuild LA to the highest wildfire safety standards.
Tamara Wilkinson has written three books on venture capital and extensively researched the use of blended finance to support innovation. She teaches law at Monash University with a focus on venture capital, innovation, tax, policy and commercial law. She is part of the Green Lab team working on climate resilience districts.
John Marinopoulos was co-program lead on the Enabling Resilience Investment (ERI) Framework and a driving force behind its creation, development and implementation with colleagues at the Australian government scientific research organisation CSIRO. The framework supports investment decision-making for resilient infrastructure.
Roundtable 6: Bottom-up adaptation: how do we build local adaptation governance and action - Join the waitlist.
Roundtable 7: Slow Burn - hidden costs of a warming world - Join the waitlist.
Roundtable 1: Where are we, why are we here and where do we want to go?
This webinar was held on Thursday 28 November 2024.
Roundtable 2: Extreme weather events, flood risk and stormwater systems
This webinar was held on Thursday 13 February.
Roundtable 3: Managing risk, value and insurance protection
This webinar was held on Friday 14 March.
Roundtable 4: Learning from wildfire: Do institutions constrain our ability to manage risk reduction and recovery?
This webinar was held on Thursday, 26 June 2025.
Watch recordings of previous roundtables here.
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