Climate Change is Escalating Weather Catastrophes

The article “Swiss Re Institute: Climate change impacting catastrophe events” explains how worldwide economic losses stem from natural and human-made disasters in 2019 and the past ten years.  

Severe weather events due to climate change are the leading causes of losses in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Global warming will increase weather catastrophes and the damages accompanying it.

Thomas Holzheu of the Swiss Re Institute, a global reinsurer, says that climate change is happening. There is an observed rise in average temperatures and sea levels, longer and more frequent heatwaves, erratic rain patterns, and more extreme weather events.

As primary losses from increasing catastrophic events are growing, so are the losses from secondary events.

For example, when hurricanes are the primary event, secondary losses from rainfall and flooding are increasing, in addition to wind damage and coastal storm surge damage.  

But there is another factor contributing to the number of losses—economic and demographic development. Growth in population and assets in exposed areas are contributing to the damages, while their impact on the environment is exacerbating climate change.

To address primary and secondary losses, the Swiss Re Institute thinks that insurers must adapt to these weather risks using catastrophe models.

By incorporating socioeconomic developments, the latest research on climate change, and local mitigation measures, catastrophe models can adequately account for and address today’s exposures to climate-change-induced weather events.

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