Title of the Talk- Financial stability: for or against biodiverse ecosystems?

Speaker- Prof. Jessica Dempsey, Department of Geography, University of British Colombia

Co-presenter- Audrey Irvine-Broque, PhD Student, Department of Geography, University of British Colombia

Abstract- For over a decade, international initiatives have explored the material risk that biodiversity loss and climate change may pose to business, national economies, and the international financial system. Central to these initiatives is the idea that – at various scales – disruptions to ecological stability will also disrupt financial stability. This has resulted in various corporate- and state-led efforts to measure and mitigate these risks by giving asset holders more information about how the shocks of environmental change may impact their investments. This serves primarily as a protective measure against shocks, but also, optimistically, as an incentive to direct assets away from the most ecologically harmful activities. As a result, such initiatives have been embraced as environmental policy solutions for government, multilateral, and NGO institutions, representing a shift in how the problem of financial regulation is treated in mainstream climate and conservation circles. In this paper, we categorize these approaches based on the directionality of their interpretation and representation of ecological instability as a risk to financial stability. We contrast this approach with an inverse of this argument: that the pursuit of financial stability, under the current international financial architecture, acts as a key driver of ecological instability. We determine that current conditions under which financial stability is pursued – including those on debt, investment, tax and currency – act as key drivers of ecological change and explore the implications of these two approaches to the entanglements of the global economy and the biosphere.

Speaker's Bio- Jessica Dempsey is a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Colombia. Drawing from feminist political economy and ecology approaches, the primary goal of her research is to explain the extinction paradox: escalating ecological losses in a time of unprecedented efforts to arrest them. Through applied critical research, Jess’s research aims to illuminate the structural forces that reinforce biodiversity loss and extinction, while pointing to specific, practical ways that these forces can be slowed. Her research and writing have been published in journals like Nature Ecology and Evolution, Antipode, the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Conservation Letters, as well as in places like the Guardian, The Architectural Review, and the Vancouver Sun.  

Co-presenter's Bio- Audrey Irvine-Broque is a PhD Student in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, where her research focuses on the political economy of biodiversity loss and conservation. Her doctoral project examines sovereign debt as a driver of ecological degradation, aiming to understand how and why proposals at this nexus – from redistributive calls for debt forgiveness to technical efforts to “green” sovereign bonds – are becoming globally dominant, and what their material consequences will be. Through work, political activism, and research, she has long been engaged with efforts to make financial structures better align with social and environmental goals, and is committed to understanding the conditions under which these efforts can or cannot produce just and sustainable outcomes. Her work is supported by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship.

We look forward to your active participation.

Warm regards,

Environmental Studies Department