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Registration
Online stream

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Date
Time
1:00 pm to 2:00 pm
Venue
Online

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Climate change adaptation efforts are heavily dependent on a country’s fiscal capacity and the associated costs of undertaking adaptation policies. 

The current accumulation of high debt levels in emerging and low income developing countries, which are disproportionately affected by climate change, raises significant concerns. This study shows that sovereign risk, and hence funding costs for governments, exhibit s significantly asymmetric reactions to its determinants across the conditional distribution of credit spreads. 

This aspect, previously overlooked in the literature, has relevant policy implications. Countries with elevated risk levels are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change compared to their lower -risk counterparts, especially in the short term. Notably, investing in climate change preparedness proves effective in mitigating vulnerability to climate change, in terms of sovereign risk, particularly for countries with low spreads and long- term debt (advanced economies), where readiness and vulnerability tend to counterbalance each other. 

However, for countries with high spreads and short -term debt, additional measures are essential as climate change readiness alone is insufficient to offset vulnerability effects in this case. Results also demonstrate that the actual occurrence of natural disasters is less influential than vulnerability to climate change in determining spreads.

Streaming details

Join through Microsoft Teams

  • Meeting ID: 391 334 366 408
  • Passcode: f78F6to9

Header image credit: Osman Rana via Unsplash.

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Jorge M.Uribe, Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona.

Jorge M.Uribe is an Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona (currently on leave) and a senior consultant for CGAP, an international partnership housed at the World Bank. As a quantitative researcher, his expertise lies in econometrics, causal inference, and machine learning. 

His research focuses on international finance, fiscal and financial stability, energy markets and vulnerability, and macroeconomic risks related to climate change. His work has been published in leading academic journals, including Research Policy, World Development, Journal of Banking and Finance, Energy Economics, Energy Policy, and the Journal of International Money and Finance, among others.

He has held faculty positions at several institutions in Spain, including the University of Barcelona (UB), ESADE Business School, and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Throughout his career, Jorge has led and collaborated extensively on research projects with multilateral organizations—such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the  World Bank Group and the Latin American Reserve Fund (FLAR)—as well as with public sector institutions in Colombia and Spain. 

Jorge holds a PhD in Economics and master’s degrees in economics, and Artificial Intelligence from the UB, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and the European University Institute, in Italy. 

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The RAMP University Network Seminar Series provides a forum for discussion on the latest research related to the economics and finance of climate change adaptation, including amongst others, research on climate change and macroeconomic and financial stability, climate change and sovereign risk, adaptation finance, disaster risk finance and insurance, climate-sensitive budgeting and public financial management, costs and benefits of investing in climate resilience, and programme design.

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The University Network for Strengthening Macrofinancial Resilience to Climate and Environmental Change was established to promote multi-disciplinary academic teaching and research in areas important for strengthening macrofinancial resilience to climate change. The University Network is a key part of the Resilience Adaptation Mainstreaming Program (RAMP). The objective of RAMP is to accelerate climate adaptation in developing countries by building capacity in ministries of finance, planning and economics to understand, plan for, and finance climate adaptation actions.

The RAMP University Network consists of global universities that seek to build capacities to carry out relevant high-quality teaching and research and acts as a strategic and knowledge partner of major international organisations working in this field. The University Network develops curricula and course materials and organises teacher trainings to enable universities in climate-vulnerable countries to offer high-quality graduate-level teaching and professional training. This will enable future and current leaders to effectively address climate-related macro-financial risks and vulnerabilities that threaten public finances, financial and macroeconomic stability, and economic development.

RAMP is a collaboration between the World Resources Institute and the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS, University of London. The University Network is managed by a Secretariat hosted by SOAS.

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