The private and public sectors must find a way to restructure themselves in order to adapt to climate change, by supporting technological developments and promoting the creation of new financial and meteorological data.

Our societies should also reconsider the role of nature, increasingly viewing it as a resource that provides services and helps to mitigate climate risks.

This was one of the messages to emerge from the FT Live Climate & Impact Summit, held last week. The 92 speakers, mostly senior executives from the business world and heads of departments at international institutions, emphasised the need for detailed data. Some proposed solutions and platforms. The majority, including the Bank of England, reported that they are conducting scenario analyses for different levels of global warming. The experts also highlighted the complexity of the situation and the importance of investing as soon as possible.

“We are frogs in the water, and we are pushing it away. Remediation is five times more expensive than prevention,” said Sam De Boo, Executive Vice President at Ecolab, adding that only 10% of the water used in industry is being recycled.

The panellists, mostly from Europe and North America, spoke about China’s dominance in green technologies, highlighting risks and opportunities for the UK and the European Union.

Louise Kooy-Henckel, Managing Director and Global Head of Sustainable & Transition Solutions at BlackRock, added that political cycles introduce a further layer of complexity. The energy transition is underway, but sudden shifts in political direction mean that the transition is proceeding at different paces across different regions, partly depending on political stability.

This exposes countries and regions not only to greater financial risks, but also to greater insurance gaps.

“Only 25% of catastrophes were insured. This percentage is expected to go down,” said Irene Hemmskerk, Head of the Climate Change Centre at the European Central Bank, during the conference.

Edward Calthrop, Head of the Policy Strategy Unit of the Sustainable Climate Office at the European Investment Bank, said that the Luxembourg-based bank will release a model in July evaluating the hazards associated with financial assets. The EIB will use data from Copernicus at a higher level of granularity (5+5 kilometres).

Marianne Kleiberg, Regional Managing Director – Europe at The Nature Conservancy, stressed the role of philanthropy in creating a framework for robust financial models that would allow societies to invest in biodiversity. Kleiberg argues that there should be a focus on local investments, but even more so on investments in areas where biodiversity is greatest.