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IRES Student Seminar with Victor Cardenas

September 11, 2025, 12:30 pm to 1:20 pm

Beaty Museum Allan Yap Theatre (2212 Main Mall) | Please check in at the front desk before heading to the theatre

Estimating climate change impact in financing to vulnerable smallholder farmers via microfinance financial resiliency

Climate change may exacerbate the finance challenges faced by smallholder farmers (SHFs) due to increased capital costs affecting agricultural operations. Microfinance institutions (MFIs), as financial providers, may restrict their lending capacity to smallholder farmers (SHFs) affected by disasters, which might halt output or increase economic costs. The research on the effects of climate change on MFI lending capacity and SHF financing is still in its early stages. Since the establishment of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) by developed economies in 2016, climate change and financial institutions have garnered scholarly interest; yet, research on microfinance institutions for smallholder farmer research remains unexamined. 

My study investigates worldwide trends in physical risk assessments for microfinance institutions to smallholder farmers. I evaluate catastrophic tropical storms and floods that impact MFI lending ability. I analyze the effects of climate change on 4,500 microfinance institutions (MFIs) based on climatic scenarios (RCP).

Biography: Victor Cardenas, IRES PhD Student

Victor is a 3rd-year PhD student at IRES, Climate and Costal Ecosystems Lab member, and Large Language Model Climate Solution Scholar. He has 22 years of public and private practice in disaster risk and climate risk financing and experience in the field in 30 developing economies. He advises multilateral financial organizations and UN agencies; he is member of the UNFCCC expert group for the Warsaw mechanism for Loss and Damages. He has a B.A. in Economics from ITAM in Mexico and a master’s in finance from IE Business School in Spain. He is passionate in extreme risk modeling using data science and AI.

No food and no drinks allowed in the Beaty Museum. Only water in sealable containers are allowed.

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First Nations land acknowledegement

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated within the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples.

Climate Solutions Research Collective

UBC receives support for managing its research enterprise from the federal Research Support Fund.

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