Climate Week NYC

There remains significant gaps in capital flows towards climate adaptation and resilience building. Despite the pursuit of greater financial innovation, enhanced taxonomy and manifest climate urgency, the climate financing gap faced by the Global South has increased. Business schools have often been overlooked as potential agents for extensive change and narrative reframing. In this session we will explore the pivotal role business schools should and must play, in directing more flows of capital to where it’s needed.

We will unpack:

The role that some business schools are playing in the north-south funding gap
Why business schools offer a much needed “safe space” for dialogue and collaboration
Why business schools need to engender a new way of understanding finance
How business schools can materially affect market behavior and capital allocation

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Resilience Hub Planet: Leveraging the private finance sector for climate adaptation: Innovative Strategies for building resilient communities, infrastructure, and biodiversity

9:30–10:30, Floor 5

Live Stream

Panel

Jorge Gastelumendi – Senior Director, Resilience Center, Atlantic Council

Nidhi Upadhyaya – Deputy Director, Resilience Center, Atlantic Council

Francis Hyatt – Liberty Mutual

Amy Barnes – Marsh McLennan

Sophie Javers – MRR Innovation Lab

Anjali Viswamohanan – Asia Investor Group on Climate Change

This panel discussion will explore the crucial role of the insurance sector and investors on climate adaptation solutions and integrating innovative investment structures for nature-based solutions (NbS). in improving food and water security, financing these solutions through public and private sectors, and strategies to enhance the uptake of NbS by farmers and local governments. The session will bring together experts to share insights, discuss challenges, and propose actionable recommendations to advance resilience for both people and the planet.

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Resilience Hub Finance: From Fragility to Resilience: Unpacking Climate Finance for Fragile and Conflict-Affected States

11:00–12:00, Floor 5

Live Stream

Panel

Stephanie Speck – Head of Communications and Lead-Vulnerability, GCF

Andrew Harper – Special Advisor on Climate Action to the UNHCR

Shehnaaz Moosa – Director, SouthSouthNorth

Dr. Abdi Fidar – Director of the Climate Predictions and Applications Center, IGAD

Namita Vikas – Founder, auctusESG

This interactive session will present a simulated scenario to examine the unique challenges and opportunities of financing climate resilience in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (FCAS) and gather practitioners and audience together to collaboratively discuss policies and strategies to drive investment in these contexts. How can we navigate the complexities of climate financing in FCAS, and is it as challenging as we think?

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COP29 Presidency Event: Inspiring action for all: Showcasing climate leadership from SMEs and impact makers

11:00–12:30, Floor 3

Live Stream

Claire Duthuit – Director, Climate Champions Team

Jesper Hörnberg – CEO, Global Resilience Partnership (GRP)

Nigar Arpadarai – UN Climate Change High-Level Champion, COP 29

Panel 1

Moderator

Raquel Moses – CEO, The Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator

Speakers

Alexia Leclercq – Co-founder of the Colorado River Conservancy and social-environmental justice education non-profit named Start:Empowerment

Reyhan Jamalova – Founder and CEO, Rainergy

Mirik Gogri – CEO, Spectrum Impact, India

Nathalie Gabala – Global Director for Gender & Economic Inclusion, IFC

Panel 2

Moderator

Maria Mendiluce – CEO, We Mean Business

Speakers

Orkhan Mammadov – Chairman of the Management Board of the Small and Medium Business Development Agency (KOBİA)

Kathleen McLaughlin – Executive Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart Inc.; President, Walmart Foundation

Natalie Blyth – Global Head of Commercial Banking Sustainability, HSBC

Nigar Arpadarai – UN Climate Change High-Level Champion, COP29

Leyla Mahmudova – COP29 Sponsorship and Partnership team, GreenZone team

The UN Climate Change High-Level Champions activate and amplify the innovative, hands-on leadership of CEOs, financiers, mayors, governors, and civil society pushing towards a fair, resilient, net zero future. Passing the baton from COP to COP, the Champions bridge the work of governments with the voluntary actions of real economy stakeholders driving change at speed and scale.

This 90-minute, public event during Climate Week NYC will bring to life the High-Level Champion for COP29’s vision. Through an engaging format, attendees will learn first hand the inspiration behind two campaigns – Impact Makers and Climate-proofing SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises).

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Resilience Hub People: What Does Transformational Resilience Mean When Local Communities Shape the Global Movement on Resilience?

12:30–13:30, Floor 5

Live Stream

Panel

Racquel Moses – Race to Resilience Global Ambassador

Ms Sheela Patel – Director, SPARC and ROOH Initiative, Race to Resilience Global Ambassador

Benoit Charette – Minister of Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks, Province of Quebec, Canada

Elizabeth Hausler – CEO & Founder, Build Change

Sara Omi – Indigenous Women’s Movement, Global Territorial Alliance

Owen Gow – Deputy Director, Extreme Heat Initiative and Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance

Andrew Potts – Coordinator Climate Heritage Network

Constantino Aucca – President Acción Andina

H.E Razan Al Mubarak – UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP28

This session will spotlight the leadership within the Race to Resilience community, drawing on the Sharm el Sheikh Adaptation Agenda solutions and its near term targets to mainstream adaptation across key systems like food and agriculture, health, oceans, water, infrastructure, human settlements and enable finance, policy and planning, and discussing how global resilience efforts are driven from the ground up, when locally led adaptation translates into improving the living conditions of people.

We will focus on three critical areas: governance and local leadership, finance and economic levers, and mainstreaming adaptation as a critical aspect of meeting development needs, addressing underlying drivers of people’s vulnerability such as poverty alleviation and ensuring the fulfilment of basic human rights. The session brings a diverse range of stakeholders to share concrete examples of implementation and best practices of resilience-building interventions that empower local communities, support multilevel governance, and foster multi stakeholder coordination. It also explores how these initiatives and practices interlink local leadership as a pillar for building an ambitious global resilience agenda.

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GRP Challenge Funds: Surfacing bold, innovative ideas with real-world impact

13:00–14:00, Floor 3

Live Stream

Panel

Jesper Hörnberg – CEO, GRP

Izabella Koziell – Deputy Director General, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

Dave Sivaprasad – Managing Director & Partner, Southeast Asia Lead, Climate and Sustainability, Boston Consulting Group (BCG)

Gerald David – Innovation Lead, Global Resilience Partnership (GRP)

Desmond Alugnoa – Co-founder & Programs Director, Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO)

Jack Stuart – Programme Senior Associate, Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA)

Namrata Ginoya – Strategic Policy Lead, Global Resilience Partnership (GRP)

GRP creates opportunities to surface, test, and scale resilience innovations through designing, running and investing in innovations through challenge funds. Through these challenge funds,GRP surfaces bold, innovative ideas with real-world impact that may start small, but have thepotential to scale in order to tackle the world’s most intractable problems. We provide trainingand mentorship for entrepreneurs and project leaders, and connect them to funders. In this session we present the latest regional and thematic Challenge Funds to prospective funders and partners. The idea of our challenge funds is not to pick a winner, but to start a race. Ready, set, go!

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ICSI: Is our Global Engineering Workforces Fit for the Future?

14:30–15:30, Floor 3

Live Stream

Speakers

Savina Carluccio – Executive Director, International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure

Sofia Berger – Director, Berger Foundation

Chris Bradshaw – Bentley Systems

Victoria Matthew – Engineering for One Planet

Marsia Geldert-Murphey – American Society of Civil Engineers/AECOM

Dan Zarrilli – Chief Climate Officer, Columbia University

Andy Deacon – Co-managing Director, Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy

Engineering plays a pivotal role in tackling some of the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate change to the development of sustainable and resilient infrastructure. However, a significant gap exists between the demand for engineering capacity and the current global supply, particularly in regions most vulnerable to climate impacts and rapid urbanisation. This event aims to spotlight these challenges, provide a comprehensive understanding of the current global engineering landscape, and propose strategic pathways to build the necessary engineering workforce of the future.

The session brings together key stakeholders from the private sector, engineering associations and academia to share insights and perspectives on the critical global shortages in engineering capacity and capability and the resulting implications for sustainability, infrastructure, and climate action. This event will mark the launch of ICSI’s position paper on Understanding the Landscape of the Global Engineering Capacity and Capability, which takes stock of the current state of engineering capacity, the competencies needed for future engineers, and identifies emerging findings, gaps and recommendations on the necessary transformations in education and workforce development. Panellists will share perspectives on the gaps and priority actions for urgently scaling up capacity building efforts around the world. The discussion will also explore opportunities for collaboration among key stakeholders to address these challenges collectively.

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GRP Investor Forum

14:30–16:30, Floor 5

Live Stream

Panel

Jesper Hörnberg – Chief Executive Officer, Global Resilience Partnership (GRP)

Renate Bleich – Managing Director, Munich Re Foundation

Imran Bashir – Vice President Business Development, Near East Foundation

Kenneth Barigye – Chief Executive Officer, Mountain Harvest

Hamis Said Hincha – Country Director Tanzania, FSPN Africa

Avinash Mishra – Chief Investment Officer, Global Innovation Fund (GIF)

Izabella Koziell – Deputy Director General, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

Neil Walmsley — Head of International Adaptation, Programmes & International Markets, Climate KIC

Christopher Wayne – Associate Director Investing in Agriculture, Acumen

Claire Van Enk – Chief Executive Officer, Farm to Feed

Siraz Hirani – Senior Programme Management Specialist, Mahila Housing Trust

Sheela Patel – Founder/Director, Society for Promotion of Area Resources Centres

Carlos Magno de Medeiros Morais

Meeting sustainability challenges such as climate change, requires innovative approaches that trigger transformative change towards a more sustainable and resilient world. Many of these innovations already exist, but lack the capacity and support to thrive and scale their impact. The Investor Forum addresses this” bottle neck”by introducing world leading resilience innovations – identified, assessed and monitored by GRP for their replication and scaling potential – to prospective funders and partners seeking to support resilience building opportunities for people and businesses. The forum provides an opportunity for successful GRP grantees implementing innovations on the ground to present their projects to organizations and individuals that might be interested in providing additional funding to enable the projects to be scaled up and have a greater impact. It also provides an opportunity for these innovations to showcase their projects to third parties, including other grantees, which could potentially replicate such projects or aspects of them.

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GRP 10 Year Celebration

16:30–17:30, Floor 5

Live Stream

Panel

Jesper Hörnberg – CEO, GRP
Cibele Queiroz – Head of Knowledge, GRP; Researcher Stockholm Resilience Centre
Line Gordon – Director, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Wendy Broadgate – Director, Future Earth Sweden

Sheela Patel – Funder and Director, SPARC; Slum Dwellers International
Shehnaaz Mosa – Director, South South North
Stephanie Speck – Director, Communications, Green Climate Fund

With the world experiencing a set of interconnected crises with irreversible consequences for the most vulnerable people and regions, there is an urgent need to unpack and invest in resilience.

Celebrating 10 years since its inception, we will hear about the GRP strategy to, working closely together with our partners, advance knowledge and action on resilience to foster transformative change and meet these global challenges.

We will invite three world leaders in resilience and adaptation to a fireside chat to reflect on the journey from this decade and onwards. In particular, they will share learning from successes and failures, discuss pressing needs and opportunities in the current resilience space, and take forward looking into the future.

Additionally, we will launch a pioneer high level science-policy initiative co-led by the Global Resilience Partnership, the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Future Earth. Under this initiative, scientists and policy makers will join forces to break silos and unravel the science-based resilience “must knows” that can be translated into action on the road to Brazil and COP30.

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