Readout from Climate Risk Modeling Roundtable

Last week, the Council of Economic Advisers, in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Council on Environmental Quality, hosted a roundtable discussion on climate modeling for risk management applications. The meeting brought together leaders of U.S. climate modeling centers with academic experts on climate risk, representatives from the insurance, reinsurance, and catastrophe risk modeling industries, Federal and state financial regulators, and representative from Federal agencies tasked with managing climate risks.

The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes the economic, financial, and fiscal risks posed by climate change. Shortly after taking office, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Climate-Related Financial Risk which directs agencies across the Federal government to take steps to quantify and manage climate-related risks. This work – along with broader adaptation and resilience efforts across the U.S. – requires high-quality, actionable, decision-relevant information on physical climate risks.

Discussions focused around recommendations detailed in the April 2023 report on Extreme Weather Risk in a Changing Climate from the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. The report highlights the challenge of managing extreme weather risks in a setting where historic experience cannot be assumed to represent current risks, and highlights opportunities to provide improved information to support risk management and risk reduction decisions.

Major topics of discussion included:

1. How to further greater scientific focus and more transparent, peer-reviewed research on climate risk modeling and the important role of Federal climate science institutions within this community;
2. The importance of integrating climate vulnerability and exposure data with physical hazard information and how to address the institutional challenges of doing so;
3. The need for highly granular information for climate risk management applications and how to address the scientific challenges of furthering data granularity;
4. Challenges and opportunities in evaluating scientific quality and reliability of climate risk data in the private sector, and how to further public-private communities of practice on around these matters;
5. The connection between climate risk modeling and actionable climate services to meet communities’ and decision-makers’ climate risk data and information needs.