Climate change has gone macro — as in macroeconomics. It’s not just an environmental, health and justice issue. It has become an economic imperative for financial analysts, finance ministers and the biggest asset managers in the world.

For the second year in a row, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink singled out climate change as the biggest priority for the world’s largest asset manager: “I believe that this is the beginning of a long but rapidly accelerating transition — one that will unfold over many years and reshape asset prices of every type,” he writes in his 2021 annual letter.

Over the course of many years, “alternative energy” just became “energy.” In the near future, will “climate finance" just become “finance"?

This week, we're talking to exactly the right person to run through this issue with us: Kate Gordon, the director of the Office of Planning and Research for California Governor Gavin Newsom. She's also a senior adviser to the governor on climate issues. 

Kate has been on the show before. She was one of the founders of the Risky Business Project, which was among the first ambitious initiatives seeking to calculate climate risk and infuse it into financial systems. 

As you'll hear in her conversation with Shayle Kann, she's thinking about how this will all play out in the world of money every day.

The Interchange is brought to you by the Yale Program in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Through this online program, Yale University is training working professionals in clean energy policy, finance, and technology, accelerating the deployment of clean energy worldwide, and mitigating climate change. To connect with Yale expertise, grow your professional network, and deepen your impact, apply before March 14, 2021.