Podcast
What We Learned About Climate and Nature Risk in 2025
January 22, 2026
Hear from Jo Paisley and Maxine Nelson of the GARP Risk Institute as they look back on key learnings from the past year of the Climate Risk Podcast.
As we head into 2026, the GARP Climate Risk Podcast kicks off the new year with a retrospective on the past 12 months, reviewing the key themes and insights that emerged during 2025’s podcasts.
After 6 years of hosting the podcast, this might be the most wide-ranging conversation so far – from how one should adjust probability of default for climate risk, to the risk factors that might lead to the collapse of society.
To make things a bit more manageable, this retrospective has been split into three main areas of focus:
- First, what did we learn about physical risks, both from nature loss and climate change?
- Second, what did we learn about the transition to net zero?
- And third, what lessons were there for firms – either in risk management or business more generally?
We also hear from our guests on advice they have specifically for risk professionals.
To find out more about the Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR®) Certificate, follow this link: https://www.garp.org/scr
For more information on climate risk, visit GARP’s Global Sustainability and Climate Risk Resource Centre: https://www.garp.org/sustainability-climate
If you have any questions, thoughts, or feedback regarding this podcast series, we would love to hear from you at: climateriskpodcast@garp.com
Links to featured episodes:
- Sebastian Leape - The CSRD Effect: How Regulation is Elevating Nature Risk
- Eva Zabey - Beyond Climate: A Risk Professionals’ Guide to the Biodiversity COPs
- Prof. Aled Jones - Flawed Models, Fragile Systems: The Risks in Energy & Food Policy
- Dr. Levke Caesar - Nine Limits, Six Breached: The Planetary Boundaries Crisis Explained
- Alyssa Gilbert - How to Make an Impact: Secrets to Climate Startup Success
- Laurie Laybourn - Beyond 1.5°C: How to Think About Our New Climate Reality
- Stephanie Race - Why Food System Disruption Is the New Normal
- Rowan Douglas - Resilience and Retreat: What Insurability Tells Us About Climate Risk
- Dr. Ajay Gambhir - Navigating Systemic Risk in the Age of Polycrisis
- Hirotaka Hideshima - From Basel to Biodiversity: An Ex-Central Banker’s Take on Nature Risk
- Prof. Tim Lenton OBE - Positive Tipping Points: How to Fix the Climate Crisis
- Judson Berkey - Embedding Nature Risk: Insights from a Senior Banking Professional
- Dr. Luke Kemp - Societal Collapse in a Warming World: A Risk Manager’s Lens
Speakers’ Bios
Jo Paisley is President of the GARP Risk Institute, the thought leadership arm of GARP. Set up in early 2018, the Institute works across all risk disciplines, with Jo’s focus to date on climate- and nature-related risk management and scenario analysis, stress testing and operational resilience.
Her career began at the Bank of England where she worked in a variety of roles across macroeconomics, statistics, supervision and risk. Her last role was as a Director of the Supervisory Risk Specialists Division within the Prudential Regulation Authority, where she was heavily involved in the design and execution of the UK’s first concurrent stress test in 2014. She left the Bank in 2015 and joined HSBC as their Global Head of Stress Testing. She has also worked as an independent stress testing consultant, advising firms on how to get the most value out of stress testing.
Dr. Maxine Nelson is a Senior Vice President at the GARP Risk Institute, GARP’s research and thought leadership arm, where she focusses on climate- and nature-related financial risk management.
She has extensive experience in risk, capital and regulation gained from a wide-ranging variety of roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Risk Analytics and Head of Capital Planning at HSBC, significantly expanding counterparty credit risk management at the UK Financial Services Authority during the last financial crisis, leading the credit risk team at KPMG London, senior credit risk consultant at Oliver Wyman, and embedding operational risk analytics globally at National Australia Bank. Maxine has a degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD about how best to apply probability theory to real world problems.
