Unlocking climate action opportunities: progress amid geopolitical turbulence

Date: 27 October 2025, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Venue: LSE Campus (venue TBC) and online

This event provided a timely preview of the upcoming UN Climate Conference (COP), offering insights into where meaningful progress can be made on international climate action.

Read the keynote speech given by Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva at this event

This event explored the evolving landscape of global climate policy, with a particular focus on how both physical climate risks and transition-related risks are shaping the decisions of central banks, fiscal authorities, and financial regulators. Through expert discussion and cross-country perspectives, the event reflected on the mounting challenges faced by policymakers in aligning climate objectives with broader macroeconomic and financial stability goals. While geopolitical fragmentation and economic headwinds continue to complicate the global policy environment, there remain significant opportunities to strengthen the design and implementation of monetary, fiscal, and regulatory frameworks. By identifying areas for coordinated progress, the event will highlight how both advanced and emerging economies can promote a more resilient global financial system, foster sustainable growth, and advance the just transition toward a low-carbon future even amid ongoing geopolitical turbulence.

Speakers

As OECD Deputy Director for Environment and Coordinator for Climate & Green Finance, Mathilde Mesnard shapes international policy on sustainable investment and economic integration.

Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva served as Deputy General Manager of the BIS—overseeing risk, diversity and inclusion, and sustainable finance—after five years as Deputy Governor of Brazil’s central bank. He is Visiting Professor in Practice at LSE.

Chris Skidmore (@CSkidmoreUK) is Chair of CETEx (the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise) and the CETEx Advisory Board and a Professor in Practice at LSE. He is former UK Energy and Clean Growth Minister who signed the UK’s net zero commitment into law in 2019, and was Independent Chair of the UK Net Zero Review, publishing the Mission Zero Report in January 2023. He is a former senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and currently Chair of the Climate Action Coalition launched by Secretary John Kerry, and Chair and Founding Partner of Desmos Capital Partners.

Sharon Yang is Visiting Senior Fellow at LSE’s Centre for Economic Transition Expertise and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law and. Previously, she was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Financial Markets at the US Department of the Treasury, and served as the co-chair of the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group.

Rob Patalano is Executive Director and Professor in Practice at the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx), which he joined in March 2025, after serving as a visiting professor in practice at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change since 2023.

Chair

Nick Stern is the IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, Chairman of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Head of the India Observatory at LSE. President of the British Academy, July 2013 – 2017, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2014.

Further information

This event is hosted by the Centre for Economic Transition Expertise (CETEx) and LSE’s Grantham Research Institute.