Climate Risk in Financial Markets and Institutions

A special issue of Risks (ISSN 2227-9091).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2026) | Viewed by 10852

Special Issue Editor

School of Business, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, BC V2N 4Z9, Canada
Interests: sustainable finance; climate change; asset pricing; international finance; corporate social responsibility; renewable energy; political uncertainty; idiosyncratic volatility; stock return predictability; portfolio management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate risk plays an important role in influencing financial markets and institutions. Increasingly, investors, regulators, and policymakers are recognizing that climate-related risks—both physical and transition-related—can have profound impacts on asset valuations, portfolio allocation, risk-management practices, and the stability of financial systems.

In recent years, increasing research has been conducted around exploring how climate risk affects financial markets and institutions. However, research gaps still remain in regard to the quantitative analysis, modeling, and integration of climate risk into financial decision-making. The challenges in using climate-related information, future policy developments, and risk management require interdisciplinary approaches that combine finance, economics, data science, and environmental modeling.

This Special Issue aims to bring together high-quality theoretical and empirical contributions that will improve our understanding of how climate risk interacts with financial markets and institutions. We welcome original research articles and reviews that address the measurement, pricing, and management of climate risk across a range of financial sectors.

Topics for consideration in this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Climate risk and asset pricing;
  • Portfolio strategies under climate risk;
  • Climate risk disclosure and financial regulation;
  • ESG integration and institutional investment;
  • Climate stress-testing in banking and insurance;
  • Traditional vs. renewable energy firms;
  • Transition risk and financial stability;
  • Physical risk exposure and firm valuation;
  • Green bonds;
  • Machine learning approaches to climate risk modeling;
  • Interactions between climate policy and financial markets.

Dr. Chengbo Fu
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Risks is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • climate risk
  • financial markets
  • institutional investment
  • ESG
  • green finance
  • climate disclosure
  • risk management
  • transition risk
  • physical risk

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (4 papers)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

23 pages, 2225 KB  
Article
Financial Stability Under Climate Stress: Empirical Evidence from Namibia
by Jaungura Kaune, Andy Esterhuizen and Valdemar J. Undji
Risks 2026, 14(2), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/risks14020029 - 2 Feb 2026
Viewed by 692
Abstract
Climate change has emerged as one of the defining risks in recent years. These risks are associated with economic losses and, ultimately, the stability of the financial system. This study examines the impact of climate change on financial stability in Namibia using quarterly [...] Read more.
Climate change has emerged as one of the defining risks in recent years. These risks are associated with economic losses and, ultimately, the stability of the financial system. This study examines the impact of climate change on financial stability in Namibia using quarterly data spanning from the period 2009 to 2023. The Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) approach is employed to assess how climate change asymmetrically affects the stability of Namibia’s financial system. The findings reveal that both increases and decreases in rainfall, as well as higher temperatures, exert negative long-term asymmetric effects on financial stability, while rises in CO2 emissions appear to enhance it. Accordingly, this study recommends the integration of climate-related risks into financial institutions’ risk assessment frameworks, together with the adoption of long-term monitoring and mitigation strategies. Finally, regulators are also encouraged to conduct climate stress tests to assess the resilience of the financial system under varying climate scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Risk in Financial Markets and Institutions)
Show Figures

Figure 1

21 pages, 766 KB  
Article
ESG and Its Components: Impact on Stock Returns Across Firm Sizes in Europe and the United States
by Luis Jacob Escobar-Saldívar, Dacio Villarreal-Samaniego and Roberto J. Santillán-Salgado
Risks 2026, 14(1), 4; https://doi.org/10.3390/risks14010004 - 1 Jan 2026
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2315
Abstract
A longstanding debate in finance concerns the impact of social responsibility actions on firms’ long-term profitability. This study provides a broad analysis on the relationship between ESG, its components, and stock returns. Using a dataset that spans from December 2014 to December 2023, [...] Read more.
A longstanding debate in finance concerns the impact of social responsibility actions on firms’ long-term profitability. This study provides a broad analysis on the relationship between ESG, its components, and stock returns. Using a dataset that spans from December 2014 to December 2023, this research analyzes an annual average of around 2260 publicly traded companies from Europe and the United States. The findings consistently show a negative link between ESG ratings, their components, and stock returns, a result that is possibly explainable by the mixed effect of a reduction of risk (lower risk premium) from social responsibility, and lower profitability from associated costs. The coefficients for ESG and its pillars in explaining stock returns are generally consistent, with a few exceptions for the environmental and governance components. The environmental pillar has a stronger influence in Europe, across firm sizes, while in the US, the effect is limited to larger companies. For governance, variations align with differing ownership structures across regions and changing investor priorities as firms grow, with stronger influence in Midcaps of both regions and in U.S. Large Caps. The effects of overall ESG scores and individual pillars on stock returns across regions, firm sizes, and their interaction, provide a more comprehensive perspective on their relationship. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Risk in Financial Markets and Institutions)
Show Figures

Figure 1

28 pages, 443 KB  
Article
Beyond the Rating: How Disagreement Among ESG Agencies Affects Bond Credit Spreads
by Ning Gu, Xiangyuan Zhao and Mengxuan Wang
Risks 2025, 13(10), 206; https://doi.org/10.3390/risks13100206 - 21 Oct 2025
Viewed by 3949
Abstract
Based on data from Chinese corporate bonds issued between 2014 and 2023, this study examines how ESG rating disagreement affects credit spreads. The results indicate that such disagreement significantly increases spreads through financial risk and information asymmetry channels, though this effect is mitigated [...] Read more.
Based on data from Chinese corporate bonds issued between 2014 and 2023, this study examines how ESG rating disagreement affects credit spreads. The results indicate that such disagreement significantly increases spreads through financial risk and information asymmetry channels, though this effect is mitigated by higher bond ratings. The impact is more pronounced in developed regions, highly marketized areas, less polluted and less competitive industries, non-Big Four audited firms, small enterprises, and state-owned enterprises. Increases in credit spreads are mainly driven by environmental and social rating disagreements, with the governance dimension playing a limited role. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Risk in Financial Markets and Institutions)
20 pages, 1157 KB  
Article
Examining Strategies to Manage Climate Risks of PPP Infrastructure Projects
by Isaac Akomea-Frimpong and Andrew Victor Kabenlah Blay Jnr
Risks 2025, 13(10), 191; https://doi.org/10.3390/risks13100191 - 3 Oct 2025
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2969
Abstract
Tackling climate change in the public–private partnership (PPP) infrastructure sector requires radical transformation of projects to make them resilient against climate risks and free from excessive carbon emissions. Types of PPP infrastructure such as transport, power plants, hospitals, schools and residential buildings experience [...] Read more.
Tackling climate change in the public–private partnership (PPP) infrastructure sector requires radical transformation of projects to make them resilient against climate risks and free from excessive carbon emissions. Types of PPP infrastructure such as transport, power plants, hospitals, schools and residential buildings experience more than 30% of global climate change risks. Therefore, this study aims to examine the interrelationships between the climate risk management strategies in PPP infrastructure projects. The first step in conducting this research was to identify the strategies through a comprehensive literature review. The second step was data collection from 147 PPP stakeholders with a questionnaire. The third step was analysing the interrelationships between the strategies using a partial least square–structural equation model approach. The findings include green procurement, defined climate-resilient contract award criteria, the identification of climate-conscious projects and feasible contract management strategies. The results provide understanding of actionable measures to counter climate risks and they encourage PPP stakeholders to develop and promote climate-friendly strategies to mitigate climate crises in the PPP sector. The results also serve as foundational information for future studies to investigate climate change risk management strategies in PPP research. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Climate Risk in Financial Markets and Institutions)
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop