The Penn State Department of Geography will host Sophie Webber, senior lecturer and Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow in Geography at the University of Sydney, as part of its spring 2025 Coffee Hour lecture series. Webber’s talk, "Climate Finance: Taking a Position on Climate Futures," will examine how climate change is increasingly understood and addressed through financial mechanisms.
The talk will take place at noon on Friday, March 21, in 401 Steidle Building on the University Park campus and via Zoom.
Webber’s research explores how international climate politics and domestic policies frame climate change in financial terms, often focusing on the gap between available funding and the costs of mitigation and adaptation. Her work examines climate finance as both an indicator and a driver of climate futures.
Drawing from her book, “Climate Finance,” co-authored with Gareth Brant, Webber will discuss key developments in climate finance, including the emergence of climate infrastructure as an asset class, index insurance for climate losses and debates over climate debt compensation.
Webber is an economic geographer who studies how market and financial mechanisms influence climate adaptation and resilience in the Asia-Pacific region. In her talk, she will outline six key positions — climate capital, climate risk, precision markets, speculative markets, big green states and climate finance justice — that shape climate finance and open different pathways for advancing more democratic and just financial strategies.