I have spent my career building risk systems for the world's largest financial institutions. The work is precise. It is expensive. It is designed to protect capital, and it does that job well. What I have come to believe is that the same rigor needs to exist everywhere, not just where the money is.

Climate change is no longer a future scenario. It is a present condition, and it is accelerating. The World Economic Forum identifies geoeconomic confrontation as the top global risk for 2026, with extreme weather ranked as the most severe long-term risk through 2036. Environmental risks dominate the long-term outlook, and the report notes that these risks will be felt most severely in developing countries with the least capacity to adapt.

The pattern is not subtle. The last ten years have been the worst ten years on record. Each year has broken the previous year's records. The volatility is increasing, not plateauing. The coming year of extreme El Niño conditions can produce hurricanes that are not more numerous but more forceful, sea-level damage that is more severe, winds that are stronger, and turbulence that disrupts industries far removed from the weather itself.

The long-term consequences are already visible. The UNHCR reports that nearly 4 million people have been displaced across the Central Sahel, roughly double the number from 2020.........

© International Business Times