Beginning in Fall 2025, the Columbia Climate School, in collaboration with Columbia Business School, will launch the nation’s first Master’s in Climate Finance program. The degree will explore how financial tools can be leveraged to develop innovative solutions for mitigating the effects of climate change.

This semester, Columbia Climate School announced a new Master’s in Climate Finance degree program in collaboration with the Columbia Business School, a degree program the first of its kind in the United States. In a press release announcing the program, University administrators wrote they hope the one-year degree program will enable students to “drive impactful solutions to the climate crisis through advanced financial tools and scientific knowledge.”As climate change becomes increasingly prevalent with more pronounced humanitarian and financial consequences, “we need all hands on deck to respond to this urgent global challenge,” Dean of Columbia Climate School Alexis Abramson said in the statement. The program aims to equip students to meet a “growing need” among private and public financial institutions and multilateral organizations, as various groups are attempting to assess and model the risks associated with the impacts of climate change.

The program combines courses in “climate science, adaptation and mitigation strategies, international climate finance, capital markets, energy and infrastructure financing, and more,” according to the statement. 

Lisa Sachs, the director of the new program, told Bwog that when developing the program, the Climate School “had the foresight to recognize the central role of finance in achieving climate goals.” She noted that “no program exists in the US at the intersection of climate and finance, despite how important that intersection is.”

Climate change’s effects on financial markets and institutions require new approaches to thinking about risk and opportunity, Sachs said. Financial tools can also be utilized for climate action–mitigating, adapting, and assessing loss and damage after natural disasters. “Those who understand these impacts, imperatives and opportunities will be the best positioned to succeed during this unprecedented economic transformation, and to develop solutions to the central challenge of our generation,” Sachs said.

The Climate Finance degree program is housed in the Climate School, but works in collaboration with the Business School. Core courses are split between the two schools, with students taking classes on “mitigation, adaptation, climate dynamics and variability, and international climate finance” at the Climate School while learning about “[the] fundamentals of valuation, capital markets, corporate finance, and climate risk” at the Business School, according to Sachs. Students may take electives at either school and benefit from interacting with faculty at both. 

The collaboration “provide[s] students with not just a foundation in core climate science but also fundamental business acumen,” said Climate School Senior Vice Dean Jeff Shaman. Climate change is going to impact every aspect of life and it is “only by combining ideas from climate science and finance can we address these challenges,” noted Business School Dean Costis Maglaras.

Development of the program by leaders of both the Climate and Business Schools utilized input from a diverse array of experts, policy advisors, and other prominent contributors to the field “to determine the skill sets needed for tomorrow’s climate finance leaders,” Sachs said. “The program was also designed to ensure students get both rigorous core training, together with exposure to practice and practical application.”

As part of the program, the Climate School will be offering Stanley Park Climate Finance scholarships to applicants with demonstrated financial need, with intentions of working in the public and nonprofit sectors, with an emphasis on those from “countries with emerging and developing economies,” the press release stated.

As the effects of climate change intensify in the near future, so will their financial implications. “I barely know of a single major public, private or intergovernmental institution that is not grappling in some way with issues at the intersection of climate finance—either how to understand, assess and manage dynamic climate-related risks and impacts, or how to catalyze finance to under-financed geographies and sectors to achieve real climate benefits,” Sachs said. 

When asked about her hopes for graduates from this program, Sachs expressed her confidence that graduates will hold senior positions in public, private, and intergovernmental institutions, serving as “catalysts for change, equipped with a robust understanding of climate science, and the costs, risks and opportunities associated with climate change.” Through thinking critically and analytically about data, strategy, and frameworks for approaching issues of climate finance, she asserts that graduates will be able to “navigate their organizations to success while supporting a more rigorous and coherent approach to climate finance more generally.”

With New York City—the world’s leading financial hub and home of the United Nations—as backdrop for the program, students will regularly interface with preeminent practitioners from finance, industry, the public sector and global organizations.

“This degree combines the best of two extraordinary schools at Columbia University: the Climate School and the Business School,” said Sachs. “It’s critical to understand the implications and opportunities for public and private finance in responding to climate change, drawing on world-class faculty and leading experts in each discipline.”

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