Climate finance is aimed at supporting climate action by helping reduce greenhouse gases and helping people adapt to climate change

Climate change is a vital issue for the future of the world, and climate finance is key to confronting it.

You get the lowdown on this supremely important subject on the European Investment Bank’s podcast A Dictionary of Finance this week. We interview Nancy Saich, senior technical advisor in the EIB’s Environment, Climate and Social Office, and Martin Berg, investment officer in the Infrastructure Funds and Climate Action division of the Bank.

Nancy starts with definitions of climate terms, including:

• Mitigation: addressing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to reduce, avoid or sequester them (sequestering is usually done by planting trees, which absorb the carbon dioxide)
• Adaptation: adapting to the effects of climate change, such as extreme storms or rises in sea level

Martin puts today’s climate finance in a historical context, sketching the changes in approach to climate action that preceded the 2015 Paris agreement.

We’ll also talk about how much climate action you can do in developing countries for USD 100 billion a year—and whether it’s enough.

Subscribe to A Dictionary of Finance in the iTunes podcast app or on other podcast platforms like Stitcher. Allar and Matt would love to hear from you with suggestions for future podcast topics. Tweet them at @EIBMatt and @AllarTankler.