Abstracts are due by 15 August 2024 at 5:00 PM ET
Abstract Fee and Author Instructions
All presenters must also register for the meeting.
The New Orleans Forum on Climate Linked Economics is sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the AMS Committee on Financial Weather and Climate Risk Management,will be part of the 105th AMS Annual Meeting, taking place from January 12-16, 2025, at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
About the Forum
The Forum on Climate Linked Economics is an ongoing joint initiative across the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to create a link between the meteorology/climate communities and the broader community of economists, corporate executives, risk managers, financial planners, insurance professionals, technology leaders, and policymakers. This initiative aims to address economic factors linked to extreme weather and climate such as rising insurance premiums and disruptions in global supply chains.
Focus Areas
The forum will focus on:
We seek to connect leaders from the weather/climate community with senior executives and managers from diverse fields, including insurance, reinsurance, banking, transportation, logistics, real estate, urban development, weather derivatives, commodities, traded markets, supply chain, financial services, investment, retail, consumer goods, tourism, and hospitality.
Building for Tomorrow: Climate Adaptation in Real Estate
The real estate sector is facing increasing economic impacts in our changing climate with weather-related disasters causing significant financial stress to property owners. This includes rising insurance costs or loss of coverage as has been seen in recent years in areas such as the US Gulf Coast and wildfire-prone regions of the western US. As the impacts of climate change continue to increase, the need for improving resiliency has never been greater.
These sessions will first examine how escalating weather disasters are reshaping the real estate sector and the challenges posed to property owners and insurers. While challenges are mounting, new tools and techniques are being developed to help mitigate and adapt to our changing climate. Industry experts will provide examples of new and ongoing work to help make the real estate sector more resilient to extreme weather for today and for tomorrow. Finally, existing opportunities and gaps will be addressed as motivation for future research and development.
Weather, Water, and Climate Applications for financial decision-making
These sessions will explore the critical intersection of meteorological data and economic strategy, emphasizing how precise weather, water, and climate information can drive impactful financial decisions. We highlight the profound influence of environmental conditions on sectors such as agriculture, water resources, transportation (logistics), and energy management. Presentations will delve into how advanced forecasting and climate models inform investment strategies, risk management practices, and operational adjustments that either mitigate costs or unlock new revenue streams. By showcasing real-world applications and innovative technologies, these sessions aim to demonstrate the tangible benefits of integrating environmental data into financial planning, ultimately fostering resilience and economic efficiency across various industries.
Managing Systemic Risk and Building Resilient Communities
Systemic risk refers to the potential for disruptions or failures within a system, such as an economy or financial market, to spread and impact the entire system. Climate change presents profound risks to global financial stability. The transition to a low-carbon economy brings both challenges and opportunities. The forum will explore the systemic risks and potential economic impacts associated with this transition. Addressing systemic risks requires effective policy and governance responses at national and international levels. The forum will highlight key policy frameworks and explore their role in mitigating systemic risks.
Infrastructure investments must be resilient and require substantial capital. Submissions are encouraged to address the challenges and opportunities for climate-resilient infrastructure projects. Societal investment horizons that address extreme weather and climate risk involve long-term strategies and initiatives aimed at mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change. These investments recognize shifting frequency and severity of extreme weather events and seek to build resilience in communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Reporting, Regulation, and Government Intervention
Climate risk reporting is becoming increasingly important for businesses and investors as the impacts of climate change become more evident and costly, and governments attach legal ramifications to reporting requirements. Presentations in these sessions will explore the latest developments in government regulations that require or encourage companies to disclose their emission levels and climate-related risks and opportunities. These include the new SEC rule that mandates climate disclosures for public companies in the US, the European Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) reporting rule that harmonizes and expands the non-financial reporting requirements for EU firms, and other emergent requirements world-wide. We will also explore the challenges and benefits of these regulations, as well as the best practices for preparing and communicating climate risk reports.
Modeling weather and climate for applications in Insurance and Reinsurance
These sessions delve into modeling natural hazards for insurance and reinsurance applications. We highlight the transformative impact of accurate risk assessment amid extreme weather threats driven by climate change. As severe convective storms and other natural hazards become more frequent and intense, insurers face unprecedented challenges in underwriting and claims management. We will explore multiple modeling techniques, including advancements in catastrophe modeling, and discuss integrating climate data, historical patterns, and predictive analytics to provide a comprehensive risk view. We will examine the tradeoffs between accuracy and precision, noting that higher precision offers detailed predictions but may compromise broader accuracy due to inherent climate data uncertainties. Additionally, we will touch on the limits of current scientific understanding and the challenges in predicting extreme weather events, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement and adaptation in risk modeling. These innovations are shaping the future of risk management and ensuring the stability of the insurance market in a changing climate.
Weather, Water, and Climate Applications for commodities markets and supply chain operations
These sessions will address topics related to the global supply chain, commodities and trade. Weather and climate are two of many factors that can cause disruptions to businesses who carry financial and/or physical exposure to the extraction, processing and movement of raw materials around the world. As supply chains have increased in complexity, even small disruptions can have significant impacts to producers, distributors, processors, and consumers. In these sessions, we will explore how new data, tools and communication systems have changed the end-to-end supply chain which starts with the commodities that are on one end of the complex supply chain process. While there may be many potential catalysts for price reactions, weather and climate impacts are at the fundamental core of agriculture, energy, mining, and logistics (transportation). We will explore risk management from a predictive and prescriptive standpoint using data analytics.
Investing for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
These sessions will feature discussions with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and private equity investors who manage the power of investment capital to address the impact of extreme weather and climate shifts. We also encourage submissions that demonstrate and discuss the public sector’s role in seeding and nurturing early stage private-sector innovation. Public-private partnerships are also encouraged to share their stories.
Other Topics in Climate Linked Economics
The Forum on Climate Linked Economics is focused on developing relationships across various industries, discussing standardized approaches for managing the risk of climate change within multiple industries and across many types of businesses. We are aiming to create relationships that drive collaboration between scientists and practitioners. We are linking climate, the economy, and business operations. We also strive to connect forward-thinking business operators who know they are facing climate-linked business decisions but currently have little (or no) exposure to the scientific community.
Participation and Session Formats:
We are soliciting a broad group of stakeholders from the public and private sectors, and we welcome robust participation from undergraduate and graduate students.
We invite stakeholders from both public and private sectors and encourage robust participation from undergraduate and graduate students. Session formats include:
ML/AI Decision Support Tools for Businesses
Joint Session with Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Science
Businesses and government entities are adopting AI-based decision support tools to help them manage risk and optimize performance. Many of these models rely on weather and climate data as input to improve performance. Examples include energy trading, storefront inventory selection and advertising, trucking transit times, crop yield forecasting, and renewable energy throughput. As AI adoption continues to drive market efficiencies, effective use of weather data in AI decision support tools will only become more important. This session will present AI models from different industries that leverage weather and climate information to assist with business decision making. Submitted abstracts should highlight the value weather data added to their models, and the challenges they faced. We encourage topics that address biases in datasets and subsequently models, as well as the impacts of these in decision making tools. Additionally, we are interested in how submitted abstracts addressed any social science expertise in the development and deployment of these tools.
Unlocking Cross-Sector Innovation: Solutions and Applications for Effective Data Sharing
Joint Session with Committee on Open Environmental Information Services:
Barriers to accessing weather, climate, economic, and industry data has long hindered the advancement of cross-sector research and development. To unlock the full potential of innovation, we need robust and reliable mechanisms for data sharing across sectors. This includes not only physical observations and model simulations, but also a diverse range of economic datasets capable of linking geophysical events to their societal impacts. The recent advancements of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications only increase the importance of cross-sector and seamless data sharing and understanding.
This session seeks to spark a dialogue amongst sectors on how to improve data access. Key discussion points include but are not limited to:
We welcome submissions from diverse contributors to explore strategies for breaking down data silos and fostering a future of collaborative, data-driven innovation.
Student Presenter Travel Allowance
The New Orleans Forum on Climate Linked Economics is awarding travel grants to allow student presenters to attend the AMS 105th Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA 12-16 January 2025 (number of awards to be determined). To apply, students (Undergraduate and Post-Graduate) should prepare a short written statement (no more than one page) declaring their financial need and circumstance, relevance of their research to the conference, how they will benefit from attending the conference and a copy of their abstract for the meeting. Students who wish to apply must submit their application to the program chairs via email with the subject line “AMS 105th Annual Meeting - Student Presenter Travel Allowance Application”: Manda Adams ([email protected]), Stephen Bennett ([email protected]), Jason (Jay) Cordeira ([email protected]), Jon Davis ([email protected]), Josh Hacker ([email protected]), Jeff Massey ([email protected]), Mark Papier ([email protected]), Josh Darr ([email protected]), Michael Ferrari ([email protected]), M. Cameron Rencurrel ([email protected]).
Deadline for applications: 1 November 2024
Recipients will be notified on or before: 15 November 2024
For more information, please contact the program chairs: Manda Adams ([email protected]), Stephen Bennett ([email protected]), Jason (Jay) Cordeira ([email protected]), Jon Davis ([email protected]), Josh Hacker ([email protected]), Jeff Massey ([email protected]), Mark Papier ([email protected]), Josh Darr ([email protected]), Michael Ferrari ([email protected]), M. Cameron Rencurrel ([email protected]).