Climate and Finance

Professor Parinitha (Pari) Sastry is an assistant professor of finance at Columbia Business School. Her research focuses on climate change, financial intermediation, and real-estate markets. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her finance Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has worked previously at the Department of Treasury, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Brookings Institution, and New York Fed. 

Columbia Business School research employs a novel financial-economic model to depict how current carbon pricing could prevent climate risks

Three central takeaways emerged from the 2024 Climate Business & Investment Conference, which gathered established industry leaders, startups, investors, and researchers to discuss the climate tech market's progress and needed adjustments.

Improving energy efficiency is not enough for advocates of degrowth, who espouse energy sufficiency as the best way to fight climate change. But their argument is absurd: using limited inputs more efficiently is the definition of economic productivity – which, in turn, boosts growth.

The climate reporting genie is out of the bottle although the cost of a less prescriptive SEC rule is reporting inconsistencies across jurisdictions and fully delegating materiality assessments to the firm.

In this episode, host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Professor Bruce Usher on how we have the technological ability to solve the problem of climate change, but that the political will is lacking in the United States and internationally. Usher says that business, then, is going to have to take the lead.

Host Professor Ray Horton speaks with Professor Geoffrey Heal, an economist and conservationist whose teaching and research on climate change have left an indelible mark on the School.