Dr Celine Herweijer has joined Risk Management Solutions as principal scientist, future climate...
Dr Celine Herweijer has joined Risk Management Solutions (RMS) as principal scientist, future climate.
The catastrophe risk management firm has appointed a climate expert as a recognition of the importance of climate change.
Hemant Shah, RMS president and chief executive, said: “Just as RMS has pioneered the neutral science-based quantitative perspective on catastrophe risk, we intend to lead the assessment of future risk, both to motivate effective adaptation as well as to provide an independent informed view of what lies ahead.”
RMS is investigating the impact of extreme weather — tropical and temperate windstorms, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires, as well as floods of all kinds – using catastrophe models that assess current risk, and how to model changes in risk into the future.
RMS chief research officer Dr. Robert Muir-Wood said: "For many regions and perils, hazard of the past is different from the hazard of today, which is in turn different from the hazard of the future. Society is still coming to terms with the profound implications of this - in addition to concerns for the safety and welfare of residents of vulnerable communities, future risk and future value is already beginning to impact today's economic and political decisions, from investment in a ski resort, to development in a canal estate in the Caribbean."
Herweijer commented: "Our examination of future climate risk is an important development that will help us to meet the needs of business and society. We have reached the stage where the economics of the consequences of climate change is going to become a principal motivation for taking action."
