Abrupt Climate Change: Lessons from Integrated Catastrophic Risk Management

Ermolieva, T.Y. & Obersteiner, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6981-2769 (2003). Abrupt Climate Change: Lessons from Integrated Catastrophic Risk Management. IIASA Interim Report. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: IR-03-017

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Abstract

This paper is an extended version of the talks "Uncertainty and Robust Solutions: Lessons from IIASA Case Studies on Catastrophic Risk Management and Economic Growth under Shocks" given on 12 June 2002 and "Sink Technologies and Climate Risk Management" given on 15 May 2002 at IIASA's Greenhouse Gas Initiative seminars (see web site: www.iiasa.ac.at/~marek/ggi/).

Risks of disaster arise out of the combination of natural hazards and human activities. We argue that by divorcing the natural disaster issues from social and economic development, half of this disaster equation is ignored. The current pace of disaster development is undermining the markets and safety nets not only of developing countries. Far greater policy coherence is needed between economists, development planners, natural scientists and disaster managers in order to prevent catastrophic losses to human lives, livelihoods, and natural and economic assets.

In this paper we present an integrated approach to catastrophic risk management that aims at more coherence and comprehensiveness. The models presented take into account spatial and temporal heterogeneity of catastrophes as well as institutional heterogeneity within a model of economic growth. Loss and gains profiles are functions of various strategies/requirements/goals of agents such as individuals, governments, producers, insurers and investors. GIS-based catastrophe models and stochastic optimization methods allow to guide policy analyses with respect to location specific risk exposures.

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