Climate x security x finance Aug 2025 - economic warfare and you
A new headhunter, geoengineering, and the A&R conference machine keeps rolling!
🇬🇧⚔️ I attended the Future of Security conference a few weeks back at King’s College London. It was an eye-opener on the future of economic coercion and warfare that is going to increasingly dominate the dynamics of the international system. What’s clear is that there is a space where defence investment and sovereign resilience can dovetail with the energy transition, focusing on the need for domestic resilience and alternate supply chains. Much like adaptation is a multi-trillion opportunity, so is economic resilience in the UK and Europe. A great opportunity for the defence and climate investment communities to meet and identify addressable and bankable projects. However, only one session was left for climate security, and I wish there was more time to expand on the nexus of risk and opportunity, from early warning to asset hardening and shifts in threat analysis.
🧑🏽🔧 The climate adaptation and resilience space has a dedicated recruitment firm! Beechtree, founded by two ex-USAIDers, is probably just what the US climate space needs as hundreds of not thousands of really qualified professionals need help to exit government and move into the private sector and elsewhere.
😎 Politico has done an in-depth piece around geoengineering / solar radiation management, revolving around the debacle around the University of Washington’s attempts at a small scale experiment in the Bay Area as a prelude to a much larger scale test in the Pacific. If sunlight is still the best disinfectant, then this is as good (or bad!) a time as ever to discuss the merits of the technology. The US and Europe may debate and host consultation, but countries like Australia, UAE and China have already pressed ahead. The US may find itself playing catchup as climate realities hit harder - and politicians leverage the scientific and tech communities for silver bullets (literally).
🤬 With weather and economic data become increasingly weaponised for political objectives, the Center for Countering Digital Hate recently published a new report surveying the landscape of climate mis/disinformation. Some shocking (but not surprising) findings:
Almost none of the misleading and false content posted on X, Facebook or Instagram included a Community Notes or factcheck. That’s damning on the platforms, as well as highlighting the appeal of the content to justify existing worldviews and agendas
The majority of shared false content came from verified accounts, meaning the online engagement is monetised by the platforms. Not great either.
Disinfo empresario Alex Jones garnered 10x more views on X after the LA wildfires in January than 10 major news outlets and 10 emergency services combined.
This makes intelligence analysis - both in and out of the private sector - as much an exercise in reputational and insider risk management as it is in source vetting. Internal stakeholders like investor and government relations, charity arm managers, portfolio managers and boards (e.g. NEDs) should be in your customer set. And don’t assume your own people are not / less susceptible to this content and may act on it, presenting potential insider issues.
🇳🇱 Finally, the Adapt Unbound conference is headed to Europe! 14-15 October in Amsterdam. Key areas of focus include water resilience and how is Europe going to make a bigger play to attract and keep A&R capital and winners within its confines. Based on the content it’s great to see more inclusion of institutional investors and those in the “big” tech stack like AWS.
I have some discount codes - hit me up if you’d like one.
I’m off to enjoy the rest of August, see you back here in September!