Reddit AMA: Smith’s Clifford Rossi Gives Climate Finance Insights

Reddit, the massive online community—430 million unique visitors per month—for user-led discussions of wide-ranging topics, recently tapped UMD for a “climate finance” edition of its AskScience AMA (Ask Me Anything) Series.

Responding: Professor of the Practice and Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium Director Clifford Rossi at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business along with Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Associate Professor Tim Canty from UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS).

Rossi and Canty frequently collaborate on climate finance education at UMD including teaching an executive education course on climate finance and risk management. They also taught the first joint course between the two colleges, “Climate Models and Analytical Tools,” in spring 2024 to students in Smith’s Master of Quantitative Finance program.

The recent Reddit exercise “is a good example of the developing partnership between the two schools as we embark on the new MS Climate Finance and Risk Management degree,” says Rossi.

His Ask Me Anything responses included:

Are there any interesting programs in the works for the Eastern Shore of Maryland/Virginia?

Rossi: There are many programs on the Eastern Shore of Maryland/Virginia. Cambridge, Maryland, has a combination of grants and loans provided at the state and local level to help remediate the fairly regular flooding happening downtown. There are also efforts to rebuild islands that sit off the Eastern Shore as barrier islands that have eroded significantly over the years. They're taking dredge material from the Inner Harbor to create a buffer from erosion in those coastal areas.

Climate policy can face a lot of opposition even after enactment, for example here in Canada the federal government instituted a carbon tax which the political opposition is vehemently linking to inflation increases. How do you harden climate policies against partisan bickering/repeal once the governing party changes?

Rossi: Policies should not be made from the extreme. The only way effective and long-term climate policy will get to where we want to be is if we have consensus and make prudent decisions balancing the long-term societal benefits of improving climate against the short-term goals associated with economic growth and productivity. The bottom line is that we need to be balanced in whatever policies we're coming up with so that we're not sacrificing today for the future. I agree with you that oftentimes we have too much whipsawing because we're on one extreme or the other.

Read more of Rossi’s and Canty’s responses edited for length and clarity via CNMS.