Letter: Insurance and climate change - Anchorage Daily News
Letter: Insurance and climate change - Anchorage Daily News
The ADN keeps running stories about the insurance crisis caused by climate change-induced increases in damage from wildfires, floods and storms, but you never mention whether or how Alaska is being affected.
Could you please give this matter some coverage in your next story on the insurance crisis? Alaska is certainly vulnerable to these kinds of disasters; are we also vulnerable to catastrophic increases in our insurance premiums?
— Stan Jones
Anchorage
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”