Climate change and risk management event

Around 250 people attended a 2-day event on climate change arranged by the Government Actuary’s Department’s (GAD) in collaboration with the Civil Service Environment Network.

The online event, which was held in November, looked at the government’s climate challenge and asked how risk management can help.

Speakers and topics

Attendees heard from 20 speakers who were from 16 different organisations. These included a range of government departments, University College London, the Climate Change Committee, the World Bank and the Insurance Development Forum.

Topics included financial modelling of climate impacts, resilience of schools, upskilling the Civil Service and actuaries, climate-related financial disclosures and how the UK will reach net zero by the year 2050.

GAD’s contributions

The Government Actuary Martin Clarke chaired the first 2 sessions. One of the contributors was actuary Chris Paterson, who spoke about some work GAD has done to help funded pension schemes understand climate risks.

He said: “We are proud to be able to bring together such a diverse group of speakers to discuss the urgent challenges we face in government and beyond.

“There’s a big role for actuaries in this but we have to work alongside many other professionals to address this enormous risk management challenge. The quantity and quality of questions from the audience were just what we needed and provoked helpful debate.

“The great thing about the event is that discussing climate change risks right now necessitates a dynamic conversation. There are new findings in research, new regulations proposed and always more areas to cover. We were able to bring together the expertise, alongside our own, to do that.”