Illustrative: an ensemble of trajectories, its quantile fan and the outcome as it is observed
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Finance and Economics · Department of Financial Markets and Investment
Physical and transition risk, scenario analysis, disclosure, nature dependencies and insurability
Climate and nature financial risk
Climate and nature financial risk covers how physical and transition climate risk and nature-related risk reach financial institutions and portfolios, and how they are assessed and disclosed.
Courses in development extend the scope to further subjects: Nature-related risk assessment and disclosure; Nature as systemic financial risk.
02Maps
Build a twin of any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow climate and nature financial risk on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Finance and EconomicsAny placeTwin builder
Houston and the Ship Channel, United States. Flat plan of the same data: relief as contours from the inline grid, the plants by capacity, the industrial points by kind and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
Terrain 0 to 66 m
30 power plants, 11,875 MW
7 refineries and chemical works
2 port land
29 named works
154 named industrial sites
Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS): read live when the 3D twin opens
Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010: read live when the 3D twin opens
Credits and dates per layer are listed under the stage. Relief in the twin is exaggerated ×1.5 for legibility.
Drag to move, right drag or Shift with a drag to turn and tilt, Ctrl with the wheel to zoom. Keyboard: arrows move, Shift with arrows turn and tilt, + and – zoom, 0 resets, V steps through the views, Escape clears.
Power plants The 30 plants inside the box with nameplate capacity in MW and primary fuel, from the 2021 release, drawn as columns by capacity: the portfolio's assets. Power plants: Global Power Plant Database v1.3.0 (2021), World Resources Institute and partners, CC BY 4.0. release 1.3.0, 2021-06-02.Estimate: A 2021 snapshot, never current operating status; capacity is nameplate.
Surface water extent, OPERA DSWx (HLS) Open and partial surface water on the date shown, draped on the terrain around the assets. OPERA Dynamic Surface Water Extent from HLS, NASA JPL OPERA (contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data; USGS Landsat), via NASA GIBS, with the product date. Live: this page requests gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it.We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).Estimate: A classification from optical imagery; clouds leave gaps; never a flood warning, a return-period hazard or a risk rating.
Built-up and settlement extent, HBASE 2010 Built-up extent in 2010 from Landsat as the exposure footprint around the assets. CIESIN, Columbia University, and NASA SEDAC: Global Human Built-up And Settlement Extent (HBASE) 2010. Live: this page requests gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov when the layer is opened; the data date is printed with it.We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).Estimate: A 2010 classification; the year is printed.
Why this place: One box of about 77 by 66 kilometres holds the petrochemical complex of the Houston Ship Channel, Galveston Bay's refineries and terminals, and a city whose insured losses from Hurricane Harvey (2017) and the February 2021 freeze are the standard cases for catastrophe accumulation, protection gaps and the pricing of flood and power-outage risk. Data quality: the Global Power Plant Database lists the region's 30 plants with capacity and fuel, OpenStreetMap maps 192 refineries, terminals, works and industrial sites, Copernicus DEM GLO-30 covers the low relief, and OPERA surface-water detection and HBASE built-up extent load live from NASA GIBS. It connects to the Insurance, reinsurance and protection gaps, Disaster risk finance, Actuarial science, Climate and nature financial risk, Market, liquidity and treasury risk and Public finance and sovereign debt disciplines of the atlas.
Flat plan of the same data: relief as contours from the inline grid, the plants by capacity, the industrial points by kind and the numbers below. The 3D twin opens on devices that can draw it, once its data and code have been checked.
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
03Live map
Habitat condition in Peru
Vegetation, land cover, fires and ocean productivity and warmth from NASA satellites, over Peru.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Habitat condition, framed on Peru.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
MODIS land products (vegetation indices, gross primary production, land cover), NASA LP DAAC and LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA Ocean Biology Processing Group; distributed by the NASA Ocean Biology DAAC (OB.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
Optional layers (5 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
Enhanced vegetation index, rolling 8 days: MODIS Terra EVI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
Land cover type (IGBP), yearly: MODIS Terra and Aqua land cover (MCD12Q1), NASA LP DAAC · 2024
Gross primary production, 8-day total: MODIS Aqua GPP (MYD17), NASA LP DAAC · 30 Sep 2026
Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
Ocean chlorophyll-a concentration: MODIS Aqua ocean colour, NASA OB.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
04The subject
The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies
The field and its scope
For risk, sustainability and disclosure staff in financial institutions, and for supervisors and analysts who need to assess how climate and nature risk reach portfolios and balance sheets.
Quantities and units
Methods and their limits
Each method is listed with what it assumes and where it fails.
What the field debates
Bodies that set practice, and the data they publish
Bodies and standards are named so learners can find and apply their published work; the Academy teaches their use and links to the publisher, and no affiliation is implied.
05The method
From a carbon price to a probability of default: transition risk in a loan
A carbon price raises a high-emitting borrower's costs, lowers the value of its assets and shortens its distance to default; the lender reads the change as a climate-adjusted probability of default and acts on pricing, limits and engagement.
How climate and nature financial risk connects the sectors
Select corners to build a signature, then hover a line to read what each sector gives and receives.
Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations
Signature
Biodiversity and its partners
Biodiversity gives pollination and soils to food (0.6), watershed regulation to water (0.5) and zoonotic spillover and medicines to health (0.4).
W · E · I · F · H · B
Sectors
4 of 6
Relations
6 of 15
Coupling
0.46 share of total
Strongest relations in play
Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
Water → Food · irrigation0.8
Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6
Food → Health · nutrition0.7
Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.
07At a glance
At a glance, with 5 related topics
Climate and nature financial risk at a glance
risksacademy.comfinance-economicsdiscipline
Climate and nature financial risk at a glance
Open, 0
In preparation, 4
Also taught here, 1
Subtopics, 8
Course codes from the curriculum; study levels L1 to L4.
Start with Carney, then Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, then Battiston.
13Questions
Questions, answers and key terms
Is study here free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the courses in climate and nature financial risk?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.
Key terms
Term
Physical risk
Financial risk from the physical effects of climate change, acute or chronic.
Term
Transition risk
Financial risk from policy, technology and market changes on the path to a low-carbon economy.
Term
Climate scenario
A coherent description of a possible climate and economic future used to test exposures, such as the NGFS scenarios.
Term
Double materiality
Considering both how sustainability issues affect a firm and how the firm affects people and the environment.
ReportsContribute
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Risk Academy
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Climate and nature financial risk
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