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Climate Risk PodcastAuthor: GARP
Hello and welcome to GARP's Climate Risk Podcast series, where we will be investigating how climate change is impacting the world of business and finance and what this means for risk management. Through the course of this series we will be bringing you insights from those working at the cutting edge of climate change. We will be joined by regulators, business leaders and risk practitioners who will help us build up a holistic view of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses and explore how this might affect you in your day to day work. Language: en Genres: Business, Business News, News Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Risk as an Enabler: How Development Banks Build Climate Resilience
Episode 93
Wednesday, 25 March, 2026
Hear from Søren Elbech, Chief Risk Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank, as we explore how development banks use risk to support countries facing climate and other systemic challenges. When we think about risk in banking, the focus is often on managing exposures, pricing credit, allocating capital, and ensuring resilience. But what happens when the mission of a bank is not just to manage risk, but to actively take it on in order to improve lives? In that context, risk becomes something to be deployed — carefully, deliberately, and often in parts of the world where private markets are unwilling or unable to go. This is the role that development banks are designed to play. And increasingly, it means engaging directly with systemic risks like climate change, which shape both economic stability and the resilience of communities. That's why this episode explores: How a development bank's model differs fundamentally from a commercial bank, and how mechanisms like preferred creditor status enable lending in higher-risk environments; What it means to treat risk as an enabler; And how innovative financial structures, from debt-for-nature swaps to climate-linked bonds, can help countries build resilience to climate and other systemic risks. ---------------- 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 ------------------ Speaker's Bio Søren Elbech is Chief Risk Officer at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), a mission-driven institution focused on improving lives across Latin America and the Caribbean. With more than 30 years' experience across global capital markets and development finance — including senior roles at J.P. Morgan and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — he brings deep expertise in both international finance and mission-led risk management.
