As hurricanes, wildfires — and, most recently, extreme winter weather — have starkly demonstrated, climate change threatens to make insurance increasingly expensive for companies and individuals. In addition to those physical risks associated with extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and other consequences of climate change, investment risk, liability risk and risks associated with the transition to a low-carbon economy are challenges with which the insurance industry is grappling. What defensive and proactive measures are insurance providers taking to adapt to the reality of a changing climate, and how are they encouraging their clients transition to sustainability? Will some assets simply become too costly to insure? And what are the systemic implications for capital markets of climate-related risk and how can regulators help to facilitate a smooth transition?

Please join us for a panel discussion on “Insuring Climate Change" with Dr Bronwyn Claire, Senior Programme Manager at ClimateWise; Mark Cornelius, Head of Major Life Groups Division at Prudential Regulation Authority, Bank of England; Veena Ramani, Senior Program Director at Capital Market Systems.

This event will be a virtual session on Zoom from 12:00 until 1:30 PM EST. Additional details will be provided to registered attendees prior to the session.

SPEAKERS

Bronwyn Claire

Dr Bronwyn Claire leads ClimateWise, a group of over 30 insurance industry members who are responding to the risks and opportunities of climate change. The ClimateWise Principles Independent Review 2020 shows member insurance industry firms have made significant progress in their preparedness and response to climate change and TCFD aligned disclosure. ClimateWise also leads in research with the Transition and Physical risk frameworks for assessing the impact of risks from climate change on infrastructure assets.

Bronwyn joined CISL in 2018 from KPMG, where she worked with insurers and banks in Australia and Hong Kong to improve risk management and internal controls. Bronwyn began her career in environmental economics at the University of Western Australia, focusing her PhD on the design of incentives and risk management for environmental sustainability.

Mark Cornelius

Mark Cornelius works at the Prudential Regulation Authority - part of the Bank of England. He is Head of the Division that regulates and supervises the major life insurance groups within the UK.  He leads some of the Bank’s workstreams on sustainable finance and the financial risks facing insurers from climate change. Prior to joining the PRA, Mark was the Bank’s Chief Press Officer for three and a half years.  He has spent nearly all his career working as a macroeconomist, predominantly at the Bank of England.  He served as Mervyn King’s Private Secretary, when Lord King was Deputy Governor.  Mark has also worked at HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office.  Mark has degrees in economics from the University of London and Cambridge University.

Veena Ramani

Veena Ramani is Senior Program Director at Ceres, a nonprofit organization working with the most influential investors and companies to tackle the world’s biggest sustainability challenges, including the climate crisis, water scarcity and pollution, and inequitable workplaces. Veena leads Ceres’ work on critical market levers that will help scale the transition to sustainable capital markets. She also oversees Ceres work to engage financial regulators on climate change as a systemic risk, under the umbrella of the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets.

Veena has authored and co-authored a number of reports on board sustainability governance. Most recently, she authored the 2020 Ceres report, Addressing Climate as a Systemic Risk: A call to action for US Financial Regulators, which makes the case that climate change poses systemic risk to US financial markets, and outlines over 50 action steps that financial market regulators can take to address this risk. Veena has been interviewed in a number of corporate governance publications around governance for sustainability and her work has been featured by NACD, Corporate Secretary, Pensions and Investment, CQ Roll Call, Marketwatch, Ethical Boardroom, GreenBiz, Huffington Post, Environmental Leader and Responsible Investor. 

Prior to Ceres, Veena worked as a management consultant with CDM, an environmental consulting firm and focused on providing a variety of sustainability services to clients in the public and private sectors. Veena also spent three years with Integrative Strategies Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization working on developing national and international policy solutions on sustainable development. Veena has also practiced law in India.

Veena received a Masters in Law degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a B.A. LL.B (Honors) degree from National Law School from India University, Bangalore.

MODERATOR

Katherine Spector

Katherine Spector is an independent consultant on energy markets and energy policy, with an emphasis on oil and natural gas. She is a longtime energy market analyst, having spent the past 15+ years producing thought-leading research at major banks. The bulk of her career was spent leading energy strategy and research for the commodity derivatives sales and trading desks at CIBC World Markets, JPMorgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank. Ms. Spector was responsible for the banks' energy price forecasts and market views, and she produced analysis of global energy supply-demand fundamentals, price behavior, market structure, and geopolitical risks. Her work supported bank traders and originators in all major regions, and clients ranged from oil and gas companies, to institutional investors, to representatives of US and international government.

Ms. Spector is a non-resident Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. She is also on the board of the New York Energy Forum, an educational organization dedicated to increasing public knowledge about energy issues. She serves as an advisory committee member for environmental non-profit Scenic Hudson. Prior to her work on Wall Street, she worked as the editor of Oil Market Intelligence at the Energy Intelligence Group and as a consultant with Industrial Economics, Inc. where her work included litigation support for the deregulation of natural gas utilities. She has also served as an adjunct faculty member at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, held term membership at the Council on Foreign Relations, and has appeared regularly in print and television media on a wide range of energy issues.

Ms. Spector graduated with honors with a degree in Political Science from Yale University, where her research focused on patterns of rent distribution in petro-states, and implications for democratization.

PROGRAM

12:00 - 1:30 PM: Presentation and Discussion

COST

This session is complimentary for all registrants. Registration is required for event link details.

QUESTIONS

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