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As global temperatures continue to rise, so does the urgency for transformative climate finance to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate impacts globally. But how the world will raise and wield the finance needed - some US$3 trillion a year globally by 2030 – remains fraught.

Policymakers are negotiating mileposts like the NCQG (New Collective Quantified Goal), an agreed amount developed countries will provide to developing countries for climate action. But the reality is that no matter what they agree, it won’t be enough. The debate on how to reorient the global financial architecture to support climate-resilient development continues, with the private sector expected to raise 70% of the trillions needed.

Can the right regulatory and policy changes be woven into the world’s financial fabric to incentivize corporate action? Can private sector finance pave the way for a quick, efficient, and fair energy transition? What roles should civil society and multilateral institutions play?

Join Perry World House for this important conversation in the lead up to COP29, “the finance COP” to learn how to think about these critical questions. 

Speakers

Paul Bodnar is the director of sustainable finance, industry, and diplomacy at the Bezos Earth Fund. He most recently served as global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, where he helped build the firm's $500 billion sustainable funds business, and also served as head of sustainability policy and engagement. 
 
Prior to joining BlackRock, Bodnar held a variety of leadership positions in finance, government, and civil society. He was chief strategy officer and Executive Council member at RMI (formerly Rocky Mountain Institute), where he founded the Center for Climate-Aligned Finance. Bodnar served in the Obama White House as special assistant to the president and senior director for energy and climate change at the National Security Council. Prior to that, Bodnar served at the State Department as U.S. lead negotiator for climate finance.  

Earlier in his career, Bodnar was director for carbon finance at Climate Change Capital's $1.2 billion carbon fund, where he structured the fund's largest investments. He was also co-founder and partner at Vertis Environmental Finance, a leading European environmental commodity brokerage. Bodnar holds a BA from Stanford and an MA from Harvard. 

Thilmeeza Hussain is the director of the United Nations Regional Commissions New York Office. She formerly served as ambassador and permanent representative of the Maldives to the United Nations and non-resident high commissioner to Canada since 2019. Alongside these roles, she was co-chair of the Circle of Women Ambassadors to the UN, led the preparatory committee for the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, and was coordinator of the Gender Advisory Board of the president of the 77th UN General Assembly. From 2019 to 2022, Hussain served as ambassador of the Maldives to the United States.

Prior to these diplomatic appointments, she was an adjunct professor of sustainability at Ramapo College’s School of Social Sciences and Human Services. From 2009 to 2012, Hussain was the deputy permanent representative of the Maldives to the UN, working on issues including gender, climate change, and sustainable development, but resigned after a coup d’état that overthrew her country’s first democratically elected government. Hussain holds a master’s degree in business management from Colorado Technical University and a bachelor’s degree from Murdoch University.

Moderator

Ayse Kaya (Kaya Orloff) is currently professor of political science at Swarthmore College and a former Perry World House visiting fellow. In 2023-2024, she was the recipient of a Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship for tenured international affairs scholars and is a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State. She is also an associate editor at International Studies Quarterly.Additionally, she is an adjunct professor at the Wharton School's Business Economics and Public Policy Department of the Wharton School. She is the co-founder and current director of Swarthmore's Global Studies Program. She chaired the college's political science department in AY2020-2021 and again in AY2024-2026.

Kaya researches and teaches on globalization and international political economy, particularly multilateral economic institutions with a focus on the International Monetary Fund & the World Bank as well as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the impact of the large emerging economies (BRICS) on the multilateral system, global inequality & poverty, and the international political ramifications of the 2008 global financial crisis, and more recently global environmental governance. Her book on global economic institutions, Power and Global Economic Institutions, was published by Cambridge University Press (2015/2017). She is currently working on a book on multilateral climate finance.