Weather and climate risks – Towards strengthening societal resilience
Zeit
Veranstaltungsort
Davos
Improving the resilience of our societies in the face of volatile weather and climate change is an urgent priority today and will increase in importance in the decades to come. The climate of the past is by no means a sufficient basis for decisions going forward. The distinguished lecture is going to give a deeper insight on the topics of weather and climate risks.
Never in history has society known so much about the processes that shape weather impacts today and been able obtain a wealth from forward-looking weather and climate information – yet pre-emptive (and precautionary) action to manage weather and climate-related impacts is not always taken. While measures exist to adapt to an ever-changing environment, decision makers need the facts to identify the most cost-effective instruments, they need to know the potential weather and climate-related damages over the coming decades, to identify measures to mitigate these risks – and to decide whether the benefits will outweigh the costs.
The Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) methodology provides decision makers with a fact base to answer these questions in a systematic way. It enables them to understand and quantify the impact of climate change and to identify actions to minimize that impact at lowest cost. The application of a worldwide consistent, yet locally specific methodology to strengthen climate resilience therefore allows integrating adaptation with economic development and sustainable growth
Speaker: Prof. Dr. David Bresch, Institute for Environmental Decisions, ETH Zurich