Answer by Yaakov Bressler for Conda update fails with SSL error CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

The following worked for me: (MAC)

1. Use homebrew to install openssl1.1 certs

brew install openssl@1.1

2. Add the installed certs to an env variable with:

export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE='/usr/local/etc/openssl@1.1/cert.pem'

3. To persist your env variable to anaconda, first activate the relevant environment, then execute:

conda env config vars set export REQUESTS_CA_BUNDLE='/usr/local/etc/openssl@1.1/cert.pem'