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Climate change has been associated with extreme droughts, floods, super storms, rising sea levels – and significant financial costs, most of which are borne by the victims of these disasters. Now, an upcoming symposium at Boston College Law School will examine the question of who should pay for climate change-related losses, and whether the insurance industry has a role in helping prevent some of the damage.
“Who Will Pay: The Public & Private Insurance Implications of Climate Change’s Drastic Challenges,” which takes place Nov. 5 from 10:15 a.m.-5 p.m. in East Wing 120, will feature two panel discussions and a keynote address by Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. The symposium is being presented by the BC Environmental Affairs Law Review.
“Pope Francis has spoken of how urgent the challenge of climate change is, and our conference fits into the theme of his encyclical by exploring how we can devise solutions to the issues climate change poses,” says BC Liberty Mutual Law Professor Patricia McCoy, an insurance law expert who is co-organizer of the event. “It’s a proactive and constructive conference: Instead of just looking at the growing risk of climate change, we’re asking, ‘How can we pay for the losses and how can we reduce the risk?’ This is not talked about much in climate change debates, but the role of finance is going to be really important.”
Symposium topics include: balancing risk, equity, and justice in coastal communities; specific impacts of climate change; insurance issues raised by climate change-induced drought; climate change and federal crop insurance; the unidentified problem of municipal risk management; reinsurance and climate change; and lessons for structuring insurance for properties facing progressive climate risk.
While the conference’s main focus is on the United States, the global dimensions of climate change also will be on the agenda. Two speakers will discuss China, which has serious climate change challenges but a very different political system than that of the US. In addition, a World Bank official will speak on the impact of climate change on poor countries, which will need help from international organizations and possibly the capital markets.
McCoy says the role of private insurers in encouraging pro-active measures against climate change effects is an intriguing one. She notes that some insurers require oceanfront property owners to jack up their houses and put them on stilts to protect against flood damage as a condition of homeowners insurance. If insurers don’t provide that kind of impetus, she asks, what happens if the public sector fails to take initiative?
Another question, McCoy adds, is whether the private insurance industry is equipped to pay the bulk of climate change losses. “Sometimes private insurers can bear climate change risk but in other situations it’s difficult for them to do so profitably. That suggests there will be a continuing need for government insurance to fill the gap.”
Her co-organizer, Professor Zygmunt Plater, agrees: “Small-town and large-city governments have to start thinking, ‘How do we adapt to the inevitable? How do we prevent future development from multiplying the problem rather than mitigating the problem?’ We are on the edge of a major societal initiative that will be forced on us. We can’t wait for the politicians.”
Registration information and other details about “Who Will Pay: The Public & Private Insurance Implications of Climate Change’s Drastic Challenges," can be found here.