February 10th, 2026
Watch this breakout session from the 2025 Harvard Climate Symposium. Featuring Peter Tufano, Harvard Business School; Dave Jones, Climate Risk Initiative; Barney Schauble, greenthread; and Ishita Sen, Harvard Business School.
As climate change accelerates the frequency and severity of natural disasters, it is reshaping one of the world’s most vital yet often overlooked sectors: insurance. Once defined by actuarial tables and historical loss data, the global insurance industry is now on the frontlines of an unpredictable future—where past patterns no longer guarantee future protection. This session explored how insurers, reinsurers, regulators, and financial innovators are responding to climate risk across geographies. What new models are emerging to cover losses from extreme weather, sea-level rise, and climate migration? How are insurance markets evolving to incentivize resilience, adaptation, and mitigation? And how can insurance—public and private—serve as both a buffer against shocks and a catalyst for long-term climate solutions? Hear about the tensions and opportunities facing the insurance industry in a warming world, and why rethinking risk is central to financing a just and resilient future.
'Black Swans' are highly improbable events that come as a surprise, have major disruptive effects, and that are often rationalized after the fact as if they had been predictable to begin with. In our rapidly warming world, such events are occurring ever more frequently and include wildfires, floods, extreme heat, and drought.
'Green Shoots' is a term used to describe signs of economic recovery or positive data during a downturn. It references a period of growth and recovery, when plants start to show signs of health and life, and, therefore, has been employed as a metaphor for a recovering economy.
It is my hope that Black Swans / Green Shoots will help readers understand both climate-activated risk and opportunity so that you may invest in, advise, or lead organizations in the context of increasing pressures of global urbanization, resource scarcity, and perils relating to climate change. I believe that the tools of business and finance can help individuals, businesses, and global society make informed choices about who and what to protect, and I hope that this blog provides some insight into the policy and private sector tools used to assess investments in resilient reinforcement, response, or recovery.