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From Mitigation to Resilience: A New Approach to Climate Action

Market Movers: The Opening Bell

November 10, 2025

Video Transcript

When it comes to leadership on the climate crisis, mitigation or adaptation efforts are important, but so are efforts on resilience.

Now the future of climate leadership is increasingly defined by building resilience against climate impacts rather than just focusing on mitigation.

Resilience is not a one size fits all approach.

It does incorporate local context. driven insights.

It also blends data to capture the full spectrum of resilience factors.

Joining me to weigh in is Jeff Gitterman, CEO of Gitterman Asset Management.

Jeff, great to have you here.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks for having me.

Well, here we are on this Monday morning and yet once again there are headlines about global climate challenges.

So tell us why resilience is important.

Yeah, I mean, I think first the challenges have been that if you talk about resilience you're giving up on mitigation.

So it's been like a dirty word for the past 10 or 12 or even 20 or 30 years.

It's like, no, we have to mitigate and we won't have to do resilience, but we're clearly not in that ballpark.

We're clearly in the ballpark where storms are dramatically affecting us.

We can argue climate change will be blue in the face, but we've seen two of the biggest storms just over the last two weeks to ever.

Hit in the Atlantic and the Pacific on both the typhoon that hit in Thailand and the storm that just hit us in Jamaica.

So we're seeing that our infrastructure, our early warning systems, our shorelines are not built to deal properly with the storms that all of a sudden we're facing.

We're talking about potentially a Category 6 even for Melissa.

So we need to do something different at COP going on right now.

A huge focus.

The whole discussion of resilience means that we care about our future generations.

It doesn't mean that we're giving up on our future generations.

Yeah, and I do want to take a moment to ask you about global energy demand, especially since it jumped last year, and it wasn't due to economic growth, and here we are in November.

Hopefully we'll be getting some of those stats in terms of energy demand for this year.

But tell us why we're seeing this growing energy demand due to heat.

So we have two factors going on.

One is the warmer it gets, the more we turn on our air conditioners and also the more fires that we have, which is the combating of all of that is actually driving our energy costs up.

More natural disasters drives our energy costs up, but air conditioning overall, as we're seeing heat waves roll across Europe and other areas, even into Alaska, Seattle, we're seeing air conditioning used.

Dramatically increase, but at the same time we're also having an AI demand curve for energy that is off the charts.

We're seeing for the first time in decades is 2.5% spike in energy demand growth globally and again like you said, it's not because of growth, it's because of the fact that we're getting warmer and we're in an AI race that so far isn't certainly helping the people most in need or most.

Being impacted by climate change, and Jeff, here in the United States, especially in New York City, air conditioning is taken for granted.

But when we think about other parts of the world, even other developed nations, air conditioning isn't as common as here in the US, but as the climate does see increased temperatures, that has been changing.

So when it comes to resilience, especially from global organizations, what are your expectations?

I mean, one of the big things, especially because of the storms that we're seeing, and I mentioned this before, is early warning systems around weather disasters dramatically saves lives.

It doesn't always save infrastructure, but it dramatically saves lives.

In the typhoon that just hit Thailand, 1 million people were evacuated before.

That storm hit the storm the prior week had already killed 141 people.

It looks like potentially at this point only 2 people died from this storm.

So getting a million people out of the way and having the early warning detecting systems, especially in third world countries that don't have the type of weather forecasting systems that we have in the US, is dramatically important.

Building our infrastructure, our bridges, our roads, and our homes to withstand Category 5 storms or We could say the climate that we have today, we're still building based on building codes of the climate of the past.

We're not even having updated building codes even in the US on what it's like to build a storm for today's climate.

In third world countries, we have to invest the money to be able to help them rebuild, especially in places that have already been hit like Jamaica just got wiped out by its milissa.

We need to spend the money to rebuild.

The stats are that 1. invested in resilience, it brings back $10 over the next 10 years in investment results.

Yeah, and I do want to get your take on this, Jeff.

So with the different resilience and adaptation strategies that are taking place here in the US that could serve as a blueprint and as COP 30 is underway, what do you expect to see from that gathering?

I mean, the biggest thing that we need from COP 30 is there's been this focus on resilience funding.

Or 1 trillion.5 dollars over the next 10 years, we need that agreed upon by first world countries to be able to support and help third world countries thrive.

The best thing that could come out of COP 30 is a specific agreement on that funding source because we desperately need that 1 trillion.5 dollars to build in resilience for the countries that are most being impacted by this and can't afford to do the rebuilding.

I mean, it's a shame that the countries that are Producing the most CO2 are the least affected by climate change, and the countries who are producing almost no CO2 are the most impacted by climate change.

That kind of scales have to be balanced at some point, and God willing, COP 30, there'll be some positive results on that investment infrastructure.

Well Jeff, less than 30 seconds here, 60 seconds actually.

So I do want to get your take on where we stand with FEMA.

What are your expectations?

I mean, the government's been shut down, so we've already seen the impact of having less government influence because a lot of home loans and a lot of purchases of homes couldn't happen because the flood insurance couldn't be purchased.

So while you're looking at some impacts of government shutdown, a big impact of government shutdown, or FEMA pullback will be the ability to close on homes that need flood insurance that need support, and it will also be a huge impact on municipal bond risks and municipal bond ratings.

We'll see in November if Trump comes through with his promise to start pulling back on FEMA once the October, once the 2025 hurricane season is over.

Well, that does wrap it up for today.

So thank you so much for joining me, Jeff, and as always, thank you so much for sharing all of your insights.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Remy Blaire is joined by Jeff Gitterman, CEO of Gitterman Asset Management, to discuss the pressing need for resilience in the face of the climate crisis. The conversation begins with Remy highlighting the shift in climate leadership, emphasizing that while mitigation and adaptation are crucial, building resilience against climate impacts is becoming increasingly vital.

“For every $1 invested in resilience, it brings back $10 over the next 10 years in investment results.” – 05:03

Jeff explains that resilience has often been misunderstood as a sign of giving up on mitigation efforts. He notes that recent severe storms, including a typhoon in Thailand and Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, illustrate the urgent need for improved infrastructure and early warning systems to cope with the escalating climate challenges. He stresses that resilience is not a one-size-fits-all approach; it must incorporate local contexts and community-driven insights.

The discussion then shifts to the rising global energy demand, which Jeff attributes to two main factors: increasing temperatures leading to higher air conditioning usage and the growing energy needs driven by artificial intelligence. He points out that this surge in energy demand is occurring without corresponding economic growth, highlighting the strain on energy resources.

Remy and Jeff also explore the importance of early warning systems in saving lives during weather disasters. Jeff shares a compelling example from Thailand, where a million people were evacuated ahead of a storm, significantly reducing casualties. He emphasizes the need for updated building codes that reflect the realities of today’s climate, particularly in both developed and developing nations.

As the conversation progresses, they look ahead to COP30, where Jeff expresses hope for a significant agreement on resilience funding. He advocates for a commitment of $1.5 trillion over the next decade to support developing countries that are most affected by climate change. Jeff underscores the injustice of the current situation, where the countries contributing the most to CO2 emissions are often the least impacted, while those that contribute little suffer the most.

Finally, Remy and Jeff discuss the implications of the government shutdown on FEMA and its impact on flood insurance and home purchases. Jeff highlights the potential risks to municipal bonds and the broader implications for communities reliant on federal support for disaster recovery.

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