Dr Nicola Ranger

nicola.ranger@ouce.ox.ac.uk

Profile

Dr Nicola Ranger is the Director of the Global Finance and Economy Group at the ECI and of the Resilient Planet Finance Lab. She is also Executive Director of the Oxford Martin Systemic Resilience Initiative, co-Director of the UKRI Integrating Finance and Biodiversity Programme and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking of the Oxford Martin School.

Her research addresses the advancement of finance and policy to address critical societal challenges across climate, nature, food, water, economic development and human well-being. She brings two decades of experience working in senior roles across government, research, international financial institutions and the private sector, and holds multiple advisory roles, with substantial experience in working to drive change both locally and globally and deep technical expertise in data, risk, analytics, scenario analysis, environmental sciences, economics, policy and decision science.

In 2023, Dr Ranger founded the Global Finance and Economy Group in the ECI that acts as a hub for world-leading research at the intersection of finance, climate, nature and analytics in close collaboration with financial institutions, Central Banks and government. She is deeply involved in developing approaches to stress testing and scenario analysis for government, financial institutions and regulators, including working with the IMF, World Bank, NGFS and UK Climate Financial Risk Forum. She is particularly passionate about mobilising sustainable investment in Emerging and Developing Economies (EMDEs) and deeply involved in the development of taxonomies and frameworks to mobilise investment for a net-zero, nature-positive and resilient transition. She also works extensively on systemic resilience, including global systems for tracking, assessing and managing major systems-level crises, with an analytics, risk governance and finance lens. Her interdisciplinary research brings a strong quantitative risk analytics, economics and decision science lens on issues such as assessing systemic risks, measuring the impact of investments, mobilising finance for sustainability, green fiscal policy, sustainable finance, financial regulation and supervision, the role international financial institutions and designing global crisis risk financing mechanisms.

Nicola also holds several leadership and advisory roles beyond Oxford, including: a Senior Advisor for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Deputy Director, Secondment) on Sustainable Finance and Resilience; co-Chair of the Resilient Planet Data Hub with the High Level Climate Change Champions, the UN and the Insurance Development Forum; a member of the TRASE Advisory Group; a member of the European Commission High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance in Low and Middle Income Economies; a member of the UK Green Taxonomy Advisory Group; an expert member of the UK Climate Financial Risk Forum working groups on Adaptation and Scenarios; a member of the Financial Systems Thinking Innovation Centre of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries; and a former Senior Advisor to the World Bank and Visiting Researcher at the Bank of England. Nicola holds a Senior Visiting Research Fellowship at the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science and Cetex.

During her career, Nicola has been involved in founding and leading many significant global initiatives related to sustainable finance and systemic resilience, including the G20-V20 InsuResilience Global Partnership, the Global Shield Financing Facility, the Centre for Greening Finance and Investment and the Centre for Disaster Protection. Nicola joined the ECI from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment where she was Director, Climate and Environmental Analytics, UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment, and Head of Sustainable Finance Research for Development in the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group. Prior to joining Oxford, Nicola held senior roles in the World Bank and DFID (now FCDO). In these roles, Nicola worked with financial institutions, Ministries of Finance, Central Banks, International Financial Institutions and regional institutions to strengthen fiscal and financial resilience to climate and other crises, strengthen financial sector development, mobilise finance for resilience and put in place local, national and international systems to strengthen resilience to shocks and crises. At DFID, she also worked to strengthen national early warning systems, shock-responsive systems and integrate climate adaptation and disaster risk management into national policy and investment. Nicola also has a professional background in insurance and catastrophe risk modelling and has been involved in establishing insurance-based mechanisms, contingent financing and regional risk pools protecting multiple countries.

Nicola began her career as a scientific advisor on climate mitigation and adaptation policy and researcher on the science, economics and policy of climate change. Nicola completed her postdoctoral research in climate economics and policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and holds a doctorate in Atmospheric Physics from Imperial College London. In 2005/06, she was part of the HMT/Cabinet Office Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change team and has worked as a Scientific Advisor at Defra, HM Treasury and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. She has published extensively and contributed to major reports including two UK National Climate Change Risk Assessments, the first UNEP Emissions Gap Report, and reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Publications

2024

Bernhofen, M., Burke, M., Puranasamriddhi, A., Ranger, N. and Shrimali, G. (2024) Integrating Physical Climate Risks and Adaptation into Sovereign Credit Ratings (September 09, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4950708
Spacey Martín, R., Ranger, N., and England, K. (2024). The (in)coherence of adaptation taxonomies (June 24, 2024). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4874598
Schimanski, T., Ni, J., Spacey Martín, R., Ranger, N., and Leippold, M. (2024). ClimRetrieve: A Benchmarking Dataset for Information Retrieval from Corporate Climate Disclosures (June 15, 2024). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4866498
Paulus E., Obersteiner M., and Ranger, N. (2024). Getting into the Doughnut – A Framework for Assessing Systemic Resilience in the Global Food System (June 14, 2024). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4865390
Spacey Martín, R., Ranger, N., Schimanski, T., and Leippold, M. (2024). Harnessing AI to assess corporate adaptation plans on alignment with climate adaptation and resilience goals (June 27, 2024). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4878341
Ranger, N. and Oliver. T. (2024). Assessing the Materiality of Nature-Related Financial Risks for the UK. Report. Green Finance Institute, University of Oxford, University of Reading, UNEP-WCMC, NIESR.
Ranger, N. and Bernhofen, M. (2024). Aligning Finance with Adaptation and Resilience Goals: Targets and Metrics for Financial Institutions (June 07, 2023). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4878185
Sadler, A., Ranger, N., Fankhauser, S., O'Callaghan, B. and Marotta, F. (2024). The impact of COVID-19 response spending on climate change adaptation and resilience. Nature Sustainability, 7, 270-281. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-024-01269-y

2023

Ranger, N., Alvarez J., Freeman, A., Harwood, T., Obersteiner, M., Paulus, E. and Sabuco, J. (2023). The Green Scorpion: the Macro-Criticality of Nature for Finance – Foundations for scenario-based analysis of complex and cascading physical nature-related risks. Oxford: Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
Ranger, N., Clacher, I and Bloomfield, H. (2023). Learning from the 2021/22 Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES) Exercise in the UK: Survey Report. Climate Financial Risk Forum Guide 2023. Collaboration between the UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment and the Climate Financial Risk Forum.
Ranger, N., Clacher, I., Bloomfield, H. and Caldecott, B. (2023). Learning from the 2021/22 Climate Biennial Exploratory Scenario (CBES) Exercise in the UK: Recommendations for Central Banks, Supervisors, Financial Institutions and Researchers. Working Paper, UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment
Fankhauser, S.; Britz, K.; Dickie, I.; England, K.; Howarth, C. and Ranger, N. (2023). Case Studies in Adaptation Finance Working Paper, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.
Marotta, F., Ranger, N. and Fankhauser, S. Securing climate compatible growth: the role of fiscal policy in driving the resilient transition through times of crisis. Working paper. Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford (forthcoming)
Sadler, A., Ranger, N., Fankhauser, S., O'Callaghan, B. and Marotta, F. Oxford Climate Adaptation and Resilience Taxonomy (CRAFT). Working paper. Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford (forthcoming)

2022

Ranger, N. and Mullan, M. (2022). Adaptation and resilience finance: The role of 'alignment' in scaling up adaptation and resilience finance in the Global South in Scaling Up Sustainable Finance and Investment in the Global South CEPR.
Ranger, N., Signer, B. and Kirsch-Wood, J. (2022). Towards a Climate-Risk Data Architecture: Common and open risk metrics to align finance with climate-resilient development goals, pdf UNDRR and UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment.
Kruczkiewicz, A. et al. Multiform flood risk in a rapidly changing world: what we don't do, what we should and why it matters. Environmental Research Letters, 17 081001
Pitman, A; Fiedler, T.; Ranger, N; et al. (2022). Acute climate risks in the financial system: examining the utility of climate model projections Environmental Research: Climate; 10.1088/2752-5295/ac856f
Baer, M., Caldecott, B., Kastl, J., Kleinnijenhuis, A. M. and Ranger, N. (2022). TRISK - A Climate Stress Test for Transition Risk (October 20, 2022). Available at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4254114
Coughlan de Perez, E., Stephens, E., van Aalst, M., Bazo, J., Fournier-Tombs, E., Funk, S., Hess, J.J., Ranger, N. and Lowe, R., (2021). Epidemiological versus meteorological forecasts: Best practice for linking models to policymaking, pdf International Journal of Forecasting, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.08.003.
Ranger, N, Mahul, O. and Monasterolo, I. (2022). Assessing Financial Risks from Physical Climate Shocks: A Framework for Scenario Generation Washington DC, World Bank.

2021

Ranger, N. Mahul, O., Monasterolo, I. (2021). Managing the financial risks of climate change and pandemics: what we know (and don't know) OneEarth, 4 (10): 1375-1385.
Ranger, N, and Mullan, M. (2021). Aligning finance with climate-resilient development UK Centre for Greening Finance and Investment and OECD.
Dibley, A., Wetzer, T., Krishnan, N., Narulla, N., O'Callaghan, B., Quevedo, A., Ranger, N. and Signer, B. (2021). Emerging consequences of COVID-19 on adaptation planning and finance, pdf In UNEP Adaptation Gap Report.
Ranger, N., Low, L.P. and Signer, B. (2021). Financial Protection of Critical Infrastructure Services. © World Bank, Washington, DC. License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.

2020 to 2015

Montier, E., Harris, C. and Ranger, N. (2019). Disaster Risk Financing in Concert: How coordinated disaster risk financing can save more lives START Network.
Lumbroso, D., Brown, E. and Ranger, N. (2016) Stakeholders' perceptions of the overall effectiveness of early warning systems and risk assessments for weather-related hazards in Africa, the Caribbean and South Asia. Natural Hazards, 84(3): 2121-2144.
Warren, R., Watkiss, P., Wilby, RL., Humphrey, K., Ranger, N., Betts, R., Lowe, J., and Watts, G. (2016). UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report: Chapter 2, pdf Report prepared for the Committee on Climate Change.
Jones, L., Dougill, A., Jones, R.G., Steynor, A., Watkiss, P., Kane, C., Koelle, B., Moufouma-Okia, W., Padgham, J., Ranger, N., Roux, J.P., Suarez, P., Tanner, T. and Vincent, K. (2015). Ensuring climate information guides long-term development Nature Climate Change, 5: 812-814.

2015 to 2010

Ranger, N., Harvey, A. and Garbett-Shiels, S.L. (2014). Safeguarding development aid against climate change: evaluating progress and identifying best practice Development in Practice, 24(4): 467-486.
Ranger, N., Reeder, T and Lowe, J. (2013). Addressing 'deep' uncertainty over long-term climate in major infrastructure projects: four innovations of the Thames Estuary 2100 Project EURO Journal on Decision Processes, 1: 233-262.
Ranger, N. and Surminski, S. (2013). A preliminary assessment of the impact of climate change on non-life insurance demand in the BRICS economies International Journal on Disaster Risk Reduction, 3: 14-30.
Ranger, N. (2013). Adaptation: Decision making under uncertainty UK Department for International Development.
Unburnable Carbon: Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets (2013). James Leaton, Nicola Ranger and Bob Ward, Carbon Tracker & Grantham Research Institute, LSE.
Fankhauser, S., Ranger, N., Colmer, J., Fisher, S., Surminski, S., Stainforth, D. and Williamson, A. (2013). An Independent National Adaptation Programme for England Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
Ranger, N and Surminski, S. (2013). Disaster resilience and the post-2015 development goals: options for economic targets and indicators, pdf Chapter 2, In Overseas Development Institute, Disaster risk management in post-2015 development goals Mitchell, T., Jones, L, and Lovell, E., London UK.
Ranger, N, and Fisher, S. (2013). Incorporating climate change and growth into the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction Grantham Research Institute, LSE.
Kunreuther, H., Michel-Kerjan, E and Ranger, N. (2013). Insuring future climate catastrophes Climatic Change, 118: 339-354.
Ranger, N., Gohar, L.K., Lowe, J.A., Raper, S.C.B, Bowen, A., Ward, R.E. (2012). Is it possible to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C? Climatic Change, 111: 973-981.
Ranger, N. and Garbett-Shiels, S. (2012). Accounting for a changing and uncertain climate in planning and policymaking today: lessons for developing countries Climate and Development, 4(4): 288-300.
Ranger, N. and Niehoerster, F. (2012). Deep uncertainty in long- term hurricane risk: scenario generation and implications for future climate experiments Global Environmental Change, 22(3): 703-712.
Michel-Kerjan, E., Hochrainer-Stigler, S., Kunreuther, H., Linnerooth-Bayer, J., Mechler, R., Muir-Wood, R., Ranger, N., Vaziri, P. and Young, M. (2012). Catastrophe risk models for evaluating disaster risk reduction investments in developing countries Risk Analysis, 33(6): 984-999.
Ranger, N., and Fisher, S. (2012). The challenges of climate change and exposure growth for disaster risk management in developing countries Report produced for the Government Office of Science, Foresight project 'Reducing Risks of Future Disasters: Priorities for Decision Makers'
Ranger, N., et al. (2012). Reducing risks of future disasters: priorities for decision makers. Final Report The Government Office for Science, London.
Ranger, N., Hallegatte, S., et al. (2011). An assessment of the potential impact of climate change on flood risk in Mumbai Climatic Change, 104: 139-167.
Hanson, S., Nicholls, R., Ranger, N., Hallegatte, S., Corfee-Morlot, J., Herweijer, C. and Chateau, J. (2011). A global ranking of port cities with high exposure to climate extremes Climatic Change, 104: 89-111.
Hallegatte, S., Ranger, N., Mestre, O., Dumas, P., Corfee-Morlot, J., Herweijer, C., and Muir Wood, R. (2011). Assessing climate change impacts, sea level rise and storm surge risk in port cities: a case study on Copenhagen Climatic Change, v.104, pp.113-137.
Kiker, G.A., Muoz-Carpena, R., Ranger, N., Kiker, M. and Linkov, I. (2011). Adaptation in coastal systems: vulnerability and uncertainty within complex socio-ecological systems. In, Linkov, I. and Bridges, T.S. (eds.) Climate: Global Change and Local Adaptation Springer.
Ranger, N and Williamson, A. (2011). Forecasting non-life insurance demand in the BRICS economies: a preliminary evaluation of the impacts of income and climate change Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science
Ranger, N., Surminski, S. and Silver, N. (2011). Open questions about how to address 'loss and damage' from climate change in the most vulnerable countries: a response to the Cancún Adaptation Framework Grantham Research Institute, LSE.

2010 and before

The Emissions Gap Report: are the Copenhagen Accord Pledges sufficient to limit global warming to 2°C or 1.5°C UNEP 2010. Contributing author.
Ranger, N., Millner, A., Dietz, S., Fankhauser, S., Lopez, A. and Ruta, G. (2010). Adaptation in the UK: a decision-making process, pdf Grantham/CCCEP Policy Brief for the UK Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Committee on Climate Change.
Ranger N., Gohar, L., Lowe, J., Bowen, A. and Ward, R. (2010). Mitigating climate change through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions: is it possible to limit global warming to no more than 1.5°C? Grantham Research Institute, LSE.
Bowen, A. and Ranger, N. (2009). Mitigating climate change through reductions in greenhouse gas emissions: the science and economics of future paths for global annual emissions Grantham/CCCEP Policy Brief No. 2
Ward, R., Herweijer, C., Patmore N. and Muir-Wood R. (2008). The role of insurers in promoting adaptation to climate change Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, 33: 133-139.
Dietz, S., Hope, C. and Patmore, N. (2007). Some economics of dangerous climate change: reflections on the Stern Review Global Environmental Change, 17(3-4): 311-325.
Patmore, N. Toumi, R. (2006). An entropy-based measure of mixing at the tropopause Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol: 132, Pages: 1949-1967, ISSN: 0035-9009

Wider communications

Ranger, N. (2023). Managing risk in a more complex world UKCGFI January 2023, featured in Allianz Climate Risk Award 2022 compendium
Ranger, N., Douglas, R., Hall, J., Kirsch-Wood, J. and Moody, N. (2022). To mobilise the trillions needed for climate adaptation, the world needs a common language of risk UKCGFI 12 November 2022.
Ranger, N. and Mullan, M. (2022). Mobilizing finance for adaptation at COP27: Next steps in aligning finance and investment with climate-resilient development goals, Global Centre for Adaptation, 20th October 2022.
Ranger, N., Mahul, O. and Monasterolo, I. (2021). Learning from COVID-19 and climate change: Managing the financial risks of compound shocks 11 June 2021
Vu, H.T., Dicko, T.F. and Ranger, N. (2020). Five reasons to support SMEs so they can build stronger resilience to future disaster shocks. 31 July 2020, Financial Protection Forum.
Calcutt, E. and Ranger, N. (2020). Five reasons you should be thinking about compounding risks now 30 June 2020, Financial Protection Forum.
Ranger, N. and Signer, B.L. (2018). Even duller disasters? How earlier finance can save lives in emergencies 12 April 2018, World Bank Blogs.
Ranger, N. (2012). Hurricane Sandy must remind us that tomorrow's risks are today's problem LSE Blogs 5 November, 2012
Ranger, N. (2011). Adapting to the impacts of climate change in the UK LSE Blogs 31 January 2011
Ranger, N. and Bowen, A. (2010). Temperature goals heat China climate talks. Guardian.