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Insurers, other professionals need to work together to tackle climate change, says Environment Canada’s senior climatologist


October 4, 2015   by Jason Contant, Online Editor


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Refusing to insure substandard properties and advising clients on climate change are just two of the things insurers can do to help the industry better understand the issue, Environment Canada’s senior climatologist said on Friday at the National Insurance Conference of Canada (NICC).

“We need to abandon that policy of design, build and neglect,” said Environment Canada’s senior climatologist, David Phillips, at the National Insurance Conference of Canada on Friday

“Never before has there been an opportunity for insurers and for bankers and investors to work with other professions such as architects and landscape architects and building contractors and others to respond to the threat and the challenge and, yes, even the opportunity presented by climate change,” David Phillips said during his presentation, titled Severe Weather & Climate Change – Perspectives from Environment Canada.

For example, the insurance industry can help influence where buildings or structures are built, Phillips told conference attendees. “I think we need to restrict important infrastructure from vulnerable areas,” he added. “We need to abandon that policy of design, build and neglect.”

Anticipating the disaster and reducing the risk before it happens can be crucial. “We spend billions to recover rather than spend millions to invest before the event hits,” Phillips stressed.

One example of a pre-disaster investment is the design of the Confederation Bridge between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. “The enlightened engineers built that centre span one metre higher because of rising sea levels, so they really are going to save us billions in the future because of that kind of enlightened position,” Phillips said during his presentation. “It’s not about building domes over cities or seawalls, it’s sometimes just about building pipes a little bigger. I think spending less money on imported faucets and marble countertops and more on backwater valves and sump pumps and the lowly rain barrel… may be pretty good decisions.”

Phillips noted that there is good reason to believe that the weather is becoming more extreme, with greater variability and destabilized weather patterns. Storms today are forming in a warmer and more moisture world, he said, adding that for every degree of warming, there is between seven and 10% more moisture. “Warm it up two degrees and you are going to have 25% more of the atmosphere rain on you. The doses of rain are going to be heavier when you warm things up.”

Besides extremes, there is also greater variability, or swings, in the weather. “There is certainly growing evidence that storms are appearing much larger, appearing out of season, out of place,” Phillips told attendees. “They seem to be multi daily, not just single day, but multi day rainfalls. They also seem to be multifaceted. You’re not just getting heavy hailstorms, you’re getting strong winds at the same time.”

In the past 10 or 12 years, Phillips said, there have been “runaway changes” in the climate. “We’ve gone from climate and averages to weather and extremes,” he said, adding that “we used to think 100-year storms occurred every 100 years. We’re seeing control measures not operating as they should; we’re seeing sinkholes appearing in our highways, swallowing up fleets of cars or buildings.”

To illustrate the changes, Phillips pointed to Newfoundland, which he called “one of the stormiest areas in Canada.” In 2010, the province was struck by Hurricane Igor, which Phillips said destroyed more of the province than any other storm in their history, followed by Hurricane Maria the following year. “It represented, since 1850, the first time they had back-to-back land falling hurricanes in Newfoundland,” he said.

Further back, about a decade ago in Nova Scotia, that province saw three 50-year storms within one year, Phillips said, adding that “it turned out, for the insurance sector, the most expensive disaster in Atlantic history up to that point.”

While climate change does not cause extreme weather, it does exacerbate it. “Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Katrina or Sandy or the Calgary flooding, but it certainly made it stronger,” he said. “You can’t stop that rainfall from coming your way… but by preparing for it and responding properly, you can prevent it from becoming a natural disaster,” which Phillips said is a bit of a misnomer.

“They call them natural disasters,” he said. “I never met a natural disaster that didn’t have some human DNA.”

More coverage of the 2015 National Insurance Conference of Canada

Personal property insurance regulation not inevitable, but possible in foreseeable future: former FSCO CEO

Canadian economy to grow in Q3, Q4 and next year, predicts Swiss Re’s chief economist

Insurers must react to cyber, emerging risks: NICC speakers

Smaller cyber breaches also of concern: NICC speakers


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