Four Twenty Seven's monthly newsletter highlights recent developments on climate risk and resilience. This month we announce our new on-demand climate risk scoring application, discuss RCP 8.5 and highlight developments in climate risk disclosure.
In Focus: Four Twenty Seven Announces its On-demand Climate Risk Application
Score thousands of assets in minutes with Four Twenty Seven’s new on-demand physical climate risk application.
We're delighted to announce that our new on-demand climate risk scoring tool is now live! This application responds to the financial sector’s growing call for the integration of granular, forward-looking climate data into investment decisions and risk management practices.
Users enter addresses and facility types to receive information on their assets’ exposure to floods, sea level rise, hurricanes & typhoons, heat stress and water stress to mid-century. Detailed facility scorecards include data on the underlying risk drivers for each hazard and users can toggle between maps and tables to identify regional trends and multi-hazard exposure. This tool informs due diligence, risk management, enhanced portfolio construction, resilience investment and pre-loan evaluations to support the integration of climate risk into financial decision-making across use cases.
“We are excited to bring our on-demand physical climate risk application to the market. Our app provides access to sophisticated climate model outputs in easily understandable metrics with just a few clicks,” says Founder & CEO Emilie Mazzacurati. “Real-time access to forward-looking, location-specific data on climate risk enables investors, banks and corporations to manage their risk and invest in resilience.”
Moody's Announces Global Head of ESG and Climate Risk Businesses
Moody's Corporation announced yesterday that Andrea Blackman has been appointed Moody's Global Head of ESG and Climate Risk Businesses. Andrea comes from a leadership position in Moody's Analytics CreditView. In her new position Andrea will lead Moody's strategy and vision for long-term growth in line with market demands for ESG and climate risk services. Moody's ESG and climate risk affiliates, including Four Twenty Seven and Vigeo Eiris will be part of this new business unit. Learn more about Moody's broad ESG and Climate Risk offering here.
RCP 8.5 - Still a Valid Possibility
Extracting the Scientific Uncertainties from the Policy Uncertainties
An article published in Nature last month sparked confusion about the legitimacy of Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5, but there are compelling reasons RCP 8.5 remains an important part of scenario analysis.
The study's authors explain that the initial design of RCP 8.5 was to capture growing rates of coal production in China. They assert that since the rate of coal production has actually slowed, it's not appropriate to continue using this scenario as the "business-usual" scenario and rather it should be considered a highly unlikely extreme scenario. However, the article focuses on the policy drivers, rather than the scientific drivers, of warming. The authors do not explore the physical phenomenon, such as sudden release of methane (a powerful greenhouse gas) due to thawing of permafrost. This is one of several tipping points that could lead to RCP 8.5 outcomes by 2100, independent of how coal production evolves.
While the initial design of RCP 8.5 was intended to capture growing rates of coal production, it doesn’t mean the scenario can’t be a stand-in for other sources of emissions that could quickly accelerate due to tipping points. Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University, has previously pointed out on Twitter that "from a climate science perspective, RCP 8.5 is very useful, since we would like to know how models simulate a 5C world.”
It's important to note that under any scenario, we are committed to a certain amount of physical climate impacts to mid-century, regardless of RCP scenario. Temperature outcomes don't differ significantly under different RCP scenarios until after mid-century. For longer-term projections it is valuable to model impacts under several scenarios, such as RCP 4.5, RCP 7 (forthcoming in the latest generation of climate models) and RCP 8.5.
New Survey on the Quality of Climate
Risk Reporting
Climate Risk Disclosures Lack Transparency
Companies tend to disclose more details on their exposure to transition risk than physical risk and disclosures still lack transparency on which models and assumptions companies use to assess risk, according to the recent European Financial Reporting Advisory Group report on How to Improve Climate-related Reporting. The report highlights that when firms approach disclosures solely from a compliance perspective, they miss an opportunity to genuinely identify their risk and improve their resilience. It also identifies best practices and current maturity of disclosures in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the EU Non-financial Reporting Directive's non-binding guidelines on climate risk.
The Climate Disclosure Standards Board also released an EU Environmental Reporting Handbook sharing examples of environmental and climate disclosures under the EU Non-Financial Reporting Directive.
Regulatory Action & Oversight on Climate Risk Disclosure
Australia and UK Each Announce Plans for New Disclosure Regulation
European Union Opens Public Consultation on Non-Financial Reporting Directive
Meanwhile the European Commission opened a public consultation on updates to its Non-Financial Reporting Directive. This is part of the EU's commitment to increasing sustainable investment in Europe under the European Green New Deal and the review will explore how adjusting disclosure guidelines can support these goals. Feedback is due by April 28.
UK's Financial Reporting Council to Review Climate Disclosures & Audits
Meet Director, Financial Data Systems - Oren Israeli
Four Twenty Seven welcomes Oren as Director, Financial Data Systems. Oren leverages his 20 years of experience in the fintech industry to guide Four Twenty Seven’s product development agenda for financial and business data.
Oren is a strategic data and content expert, adept at launching and overseeing products and solutions to serve the top investment firms globally.
Upcoming Events
Join the Four Twenty Seven team at these events:
Mar 9 - 11 – GARP Risk Convention, New York, NY: Global Director of Client Services, Yoon Kim, will present on climate risk for investors and Editor, Natalie Ambrosio, will host Four Twenty Seven's booth.
February 27, 2020 – BERKELEY, CA – Four Twenty Seven, an affiliate of Moody’s and the leading publisher of climate data for financial markets, today announces the release of a new on-demand climate risk scoring tool. This application responds to the financial sector’s growing call for the seamless integration of granular, forward-looking climate data into investment decisions and risk management practices.
Users are able to enter location and other data via an intuitive interface and immediately receive information on their assets’ exposure for floods, sea level rise, hurricanes & typhoons, heat stress and water stress to mid-century. The application allows users to browse and download detailed facility scorecards that include data on the underlying risk drivers for each hazard. The application also enables users to toggle between maps and tables to identify regional trends and multi-hazard exposure. Users can perform analyses for large volumes of locations via an API and integrate the outputs into downstream risk management and portfolio analysis applications.
As the material financial impacts of climate change become increasingly evident, understanding and preparing for climate risks is essential. Real estate investors can use Four Twenty Seven’s physical climate risk app for due diligence and proactive risk management across their portfolio of properties. Portfolio managers can leverage the application to report climate risk exposure and enhance portfolio decision-making. Asset owners can evaluate long-term risk exposure and engage with corporations and managers to improve resilience. Banks can score thousands of locations at once to identify risk in commercial and residential lending portfolios. Corporations can identify risk hotspots and opportunities to build resilience in their global operations.
“We are excited to bring our on-demand physical climate risk application to the market. Our app provides access to sophisticated climate model outputs in easily understandable metrics with just a few clicks,” says Four Twenty Seven’s Founder & CEO, Emilie Mazzacurati. “Real-time access to forward-looking, location-specific data on climate risk enables investors, banks and corporations to manage their risk and invest in resilience.”
Four Twenty Seven's monthly newsletter highlights recent developments on climate risk and resilience. This month we feature a report on scenario analysis for physical climate risks, share technical elements of climate risk assessments and highlight new research on sea level rise.
In Focus: Scenario Analysis for
Physical Climate Risks
427 Report: Demystifying Scenario Analysis for Financial Stakeholders
Scenario analysis is an essential yet challenging component of understanding and preparing for the impacts of climate change on assets, markets and economies. Many climate impacts are already locked in to mid-century, so when focusing on the next few decades scenario analysis should focus on the scientific phenomenon driving uncertainty, rather than the climate policies which have a greater impact over the longer term. Four Twenty Seven's new report, Demystifying Climate Scenario Analysis for Financial Stakeholders, explores which impacts are already locked in, identifies how Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios fit into the conversation, and describes an approach to setting up scenario analysis for near-term physical climate risks.
Our atmosphere will continue to warm for many decades even if we stop emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow. The oceans will continue to rise, heat waves will become more severe and droughts will intensify. For example, the most water stressed areas are anticipated to experience reductions in dry season rainfall equivalent to the two decades surrounding the American dust bowl. This report outlines an approach called percentile-based analysis, which allows users to explore the range of potential outcomes based on climate model outputs within a single RCP.
Leveraging the Cloud for Rapid Climate Risk Assessments
"Providing location-specific risk assessments requires accessing and processing the best climate data available. Climate data poses processing challenges due to the raw file size of climate model outputs, where a single file can be hundreds of megabytes or more, and an entire dataset can be anywhere from tens of terabytes to multiple petabytes." Four Twenty Seven Senior Data Analyst, Colin Gannon, writes about leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) for data storage and processing.
The Next Generation of Climate Models
Forty-nine modeling organizations are working on the next generation of climate models, known as Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects, or CMIP 6. Some of these models have already been released, but others are still forthcoming. CMIP 6 explores a larger range of potential futures and released models tend to project more warming than previous climate models. Although CMIP 6 is behind schedule, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report plans to incorporate these updated models into its analysis.
Sea Level Rise - What's at Stake?
Global Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise Worse than Previously Understood
Many global coastlines are lower than previously known, meaning that hundreds of millions more people than expected are vulnerable to sea level rise, according to recent research by non-profit Climate Central. Leveraging a new digital elevation model, Climate Central found that by mid-century "land currently home to 300 million people will fall below the elevation of an average annual coastal flood." While scientists continue to explore the timing and implications around ice sheet collapse, this new research provides improved understanding of global coastal elevations and the potential for dire impacts on economies and communities.
The space industry is particularly vulnerable to sea level rise. There is little redundancy built in to the industry and the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station are both exposed to significant coastal flooding. "Complex 39A is estimated to face a 14% annual risk of flooding next year and it’s projected to flood at least once a year on average during the 2060s unless additional measures are taken to protect it according to Climate Central's analysis. By 2100, parts of the launch site could experience near monthly flooding." NASA is building a 17ft high sand dune to protect the launchpads from the rising ocean, but experts wonder if this is a meaningful solution.
Inside the Office at Four Twenty Seven
Meet Senior Software Engineer, Alix Herrmann
Four Twenty Seven welcomes Alix, who leverages over 25 years of experience in software engineering to expand Four Twenty Seven’s climate risk scoring capabilities. Previously, Alix developed big data analytics for financial market trading at Instinet. She also has experience building neural network compilers, developing DSP-oriented mathematical libraries and creating ground-based radar signal processing pipelines.
Join the Team! Four Twenty Seven is Hiring
There are several opportunities to join Four Twenty Seven's dynamic team in offices across the U.S. and Europe. See the open positions below and visit our Careers page for more information.
Climate Risk Analyst with expertise in translating applied climate change science for a wide range of stakeholders
Regional Sales Directors (North America and United Kingdom), with extensive experience selling and supporting data products and services for large commercial, financial and government institutions
Director of Financial Data Systems with significant experience in the development and management of financial data processing, storage and retrieval
Upcoming Events
Join the Four Twenty Seven team at these events:
Dec 4 - 5 – RI New York 2019, New York, NY: Stop by Four Twenty Seven's booth to meet the team and hear Global Director of Client Services, Yoon Kim, speak about climate risk stress tests. Senior Analyst, Lindsay Ross, and Editor, Natalie Ambrosio, will host Four Twenty Seven's booth.
Dec 10 – Sustainatopia, Sunnyvale, CA: Natalie Ambrosio will speak on integrating physical climate risk into investment strategies.
Dec 9 - 12 – AGU Fall Meeting 2019, San Francisco, CA: Director of Analytics, Nik Steinberg, and Senior Data Analysts, Josh Turner and Colin Gannon, will attend.
Jan 6 - Jan 9 – NCSE 2020 Annual Conference, Washington, DC: Yoon Kim and Lindsay Ross will speak about cross-sector resilience-building and resilient infrastructure, respectively.
Jan 12 - Jan 16 – 2020 AMS Meeting, Boston, MA: Josh Turner will attend.
Jan 27 – Cleantech Forum, San Francisco, CA: Natalie Ambrosio will speak.
December 4, 2019 – 427 REPORT. Scenario analysis is an essential yet challenging component of understanding and preparing for the impacts of climate change on assets, markets and economies. When focusing on the short term, the warming and related impacts we have already committed to calls for scenarios that are decoupled from economic and policy activities and instead focus on the impacts that are already locked in. This report explores which impacts are already locked in, identifies how Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios fit into the conversation, and describes an approach to setting up scenario analysis for near-term physical climate risks.
As the effects of climate change increasingly threaten financial stability, investors and regulators are seeking to understand what impacts lie ahead, and calling for an increase in physical climate risk assessment and disclosure in line with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). To assess the scale of financial risk posed by physical climate change it is important to quantify risks under different climate scenarios. How will changes in extreme weather patterns, longer droughts and rising seas differ under various scenarios? Answering these questions through scenario analysis helps uncover the range of risks, allowing investors to identify assets and markets that are more likely to become stranded over time and to begin developing forward-looking resilience strategies. However, science-driven, decision-useful scenario analysis poses many challenges for businesses and financial stakeholders today, due to complex feedback loops, varying timescales, and multiple interacting factors that ultimately determine how global climate change manifests.
Figure 2.Distribution of daily extreme temperature changes in 2030-2040, expressed as a percent change, relative to a baseline of 1975-2005 under RCP 8.5. This map shows statistically downscaled global climate models averaged together, for this time frame and scenario. NASA Earth Exchange Global Daily Downscaled Projections statistically downscales climate model outputs to a ~25 kilometer resolution (see full details here) White areas are excluded because they lack potential for significant economic activity.
This new report, Demystifying Climate Scenario Analysis for Financial Stakeholders, explores which physical impacts are already locked in, identifies how Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios apply, and describes an approach to setting up scenario analysis for near-term physical climate risks. Scenario analysis is often approached from the perspective of transition risk, where policy developments and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets are the key drivers of risk pathways over the near-term, in the next 10 to 30 years. Physical risk, however, requires a different approach. Impacts over the coming decades are largely locked in, making the emissions scenarios less relevant. Unlike transition risk, GHG emission pathways play a minimal role in the behavior of the near-term climate and GHG emission pathways only begin to meaningfully influence global temperatures near mid-century. The uncertainty in physical climate risks in the near-term is driven by uncertainty in physical processes, rather than in policy decisions.
For organizations looking to construct physical climate risk scenarios for risk management and strategy purposes, it is critical to understand the scientific phenomena driving our plausible climate futures. This report outlines an approach called percentile-based analysis, which allows users to explore the range of potential outcomes based on climate model outputs within a single RCP. This offers a flexible, data-driven approach, suitable for portfolio-level screenings, reporting, and in some cases, direct engagement with asset managers.
Key Takeaways:
Quantifying climate risks under different scenarios is a key element in understanding how physical climate risks pose financial risks.
Scenario analysis is often approached from the perspective of transition risk, where policy developments and greenhouse gas emission targets are the key drivers of risk pathways in the next 10 to 30 years. However, physical climate impacts over the coming decades are largely locked in, so physical risk requires a different approach.
Even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow, many physical climate impacts, such as increasing temperatures, more severe droughts, and rising sea levels, would already be locked in because of the time carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere and the time it takes the atmosphere to respond.
The uncertainty in how physical climate risks may manifest in the next few decades is driven by model uncertainty, which should therefore be the focus of scenario analysis for physical climate risks in the near-term.
Percentile-based analysis offers a flexible, data-driven approach, suitable for portfolio-level screenings, reporting, and in some cases, direct engagement with asset managers.
OCTOBER 23, 2019 – BERKELEY, CA – Four Twenty Seven announces opening of Tokyo office and hires senior country representative.
Four Twenty Seven, an affiliate of Moody’s and the leading publisher of climate data for financial markets, is pleased to announce the opening of its office in Tokyo, Japan. Four Twenty Seven’s Tokyo office opens as investors and businesses in Japan and across the Asia-Pacific region face increasing market pressure to assess and disclose the risks physical climate hazards pose to their investments.
In conjunction with the opening of its office in Tokyo, Four Twenty Seven is also pleased to announce that Toshi Matsumae will serve as its Director of Japan. Toshi brings 30 years of experience leading financial services organizations in Japan. He leverages this expertise to lead Four Twenty Seven’s effort to provide climate risk screening to investors, asset managers, banks and corporations striving to understand their risk to physical climate hazards throughout Japan.
“We’ve seen growing demand from Japanese markets over the past year for transparency around exposure to physical climate risks in corporate assets, investment portfolios and in credit portfolios,” says Emilie Mazzacurati, Four Twenty Seven’s Founder and CEO. “Four Twenty Seven’s on-the-ground presence in Japan will allow us to bring asset-level risk data to support this demand and inform global resilience-building.”
“The opening of Four Twenty Seven’s Tokyo office comes at a time when the financial sector is calling for better integration of forward-looking climate data into decision-making,” says Toshi Matsumae, Four Twenty Seven’s Director of Japan. “I look forward to working with investors and businesses throughout Asia to better understand and serve the needs of this evolving market.”
How does the private sector view climate change, why is this important for global climate adaptation and how does someone in this field remain motivated? Founder & CEO, Emilie Mazzacurati, joins Josh Dorfman’s new podcast, The Last Environmentalist, to discuss these topics and much more. The conversation covers the evolving views of climate risk in the financial sector and how this awareness can translate into resilience-building. Emilie describes near-term impacts of climate change on real estate markets, adaptation actions taken by corporations and the interacting nature of climate risk and resilience across private and public sectors.
Four Twenty Seven's monthly newsletter highlights recent developments on climate risk and resilience. This month we feature analysis on climate risk in European real estate, Moody's research on credit quality and heat stress and the first climate resilience bond.
In Focus: Real Estate Climate Risk in Europe
Four Twenty Seven Analysis - Real Estate Climate Risks: How Will Europe be Impacted?
From this summer's record-breaking heat waves to storm-surge induced flooding, Europe is increasingly experiencing the impacts of climate change. Extreme events and chronic stresses have substantial impacts on real estate, by damaging individual buildings, decreasing their value and potentially leading to unusable assets. These asset-level impacts also have wider market implications.
Our latest analysis assesses the exposure of retail sites and offices across Europe to floods, sea level rise and heat stress. We find that 19% of assessed retail spaces and 16% of offices in Europe are exposed to floods and/or sea level rise, with floods presenting the highest risk for both types of asset. The analysis identifies the cities with the largest percent of facilities exposed to floods and sea level rise, and discusses the implications this exposure has for business continuity and real estate markets across the continent.
New Principles Support Integration of Resilience into Bond Markets
CBI Releases Climate Resilience Principles
Last Week the Climate Bond Initiative released Climate Resilience Principles, integrating forward-looking climate risk assessment and resilience considerations into bond markets. The guidance document is meant to inform investors', governments' and banks' reviews of how projects and assets contribute to a climate-resilient economy. The principles will be integrated into the Climate Bonds Certification of green bonds, signaling a valuable step toward the consistent use of resilience standards for debt projects. Four Twenty Seven is proud to have contributed to the Adaptation and Resilience Expert Group that developed the principles.
EBRD Issues First Climate Resilience Bond
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) issued the first bond to solely finance climate resilience projects. This is the first bond to fulfill the requirements of the new Climate Resilience Principles. Craig Davies, head of climate resilience investments at the EBRD, told Environmental Finance "The climate resiliency principles that the CBI has developed are a really important landmark because they very clearly set out eligibility criteria, and some very simple but clear and robust methodologies for defining a climate-resilient investment." The EBRD's four year bond raised $700 million to finance "climate-resilient infrastructure, business and commercial operations, or agricultural and ecological systems."
The EBRD also released a consultation draft of a Framework for Climate Resilience Metrics in Financing Operations this week. The report, published jointly with other multilateral development banks and the International Development Finance Club, outlines a vocabulary to facilitate consistent discussion and measurement of resilience investment.
Global Commission on Adaptation Launches Year of Action
The Global Commission on Adaptation presented its flagship report, Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience this week at the United Nations Climate Summit. This report emphasizes the return on investment of climate adaptation, noting that "investing $1.8 trillion globally in five areas from 2020 to 2030 could generate $7.1 trillion in total net benefits." It focuses on early warning systems, climate-resilient infrastructure, improving dryland agriculture, mangrove protection and increasing the resilience of water resources. This kicks off the Commission's Year of Action, during which it will advance recommendations, accelerate adaptation, promote more sustainable economic development and collate findings to present at the Climate Adaptation Summit in October 2020.
The Commission's report was informed by a paper called Driving Finance Today for the Climate Resilient Society Tomorrow by the UNEP Finance Initiative and Climate Finance Advisors. It outlines financial barriers to the acceleration of adaptation investment and recommends six actions to unlock adaptation finance. These actions include accelerating climate-relevant policies, implementing climate risk management, developing adaptation metrics, building financial sector capacity, highlighting investment opportunities and leveraging public institutions to accelerate adaptation investment.
Retailers Prepare for Physical Climate Risk
Women's apparel store, A'gaci, filed for bankruptcy in January 2018 after most of its stores were hit by hurricanes in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Hurricanes can affect retail operations by causing building damage, merchandise loss and supply chain disruptions, and Hurricane Irma caused an estimated $2.8 billion loss for the sector. Retail Dive explores the implications of climate change for the retail sector at large, using Four Twenty Seven's data on retail site exposure. With over 17,000 retail facilities exposed to floods in the U.S., some businesses are beginning to prepare, reorganizing their distribution patterns and supply chains. Some retail stores, such as Home Depot, can also see increases in demand after extreme events, and will particularly stand to benefit if their facilities are resilient to climate hazards and can accommodate the associated surge in business.
New research by a Federal Reserve Board Economist, finds that weather variability impacts retail sales. On average, sales tend to increase with temperature and decrease with rain and snowfall. Overall there is not a clear shift in shopping habits from outdoor stores to indoor venues during extreme weather, but these patterns do show regional variation, suggesting that the impacts of extreme weather events vary by region. The impact of extreme events on sales will have an impact on retail employees and local economies depending on these companies. Businesses can leverage this research, alongside data on climate risk exposure, to plan for these shifts in consumer behavior.
Inside the Office at Four Twenty Seven
Meet Operations Coordinator, Naoko Neishi
Four Twenty Seve welcomes Naoko, who supports senior management and works with the Operations Manager to achieve operational excellence. Naoko has over 16 years of experience as a sales assistant and office manager in the United States and Japan, working in the financial and engineering industries.
Thurs. Sept 26, 8:30 AM - 12:20 PM – Moody's Climate Week Briefing: Senior Analyst, Lindsay Ross, will speak on a panel about climate adaptation efforts.
Thurs. Sept 26, 6 PM - 9:30 PM – Climate Week Symposium: Lindsay Ross will participate in a panel on fiduciary duty in a climate context.
Join the Four Twenty Seven team at these events:
Sept 23 - 29 – Climate Week NYC, New York, NY: Lisa Stanton and Lindsay Ross, will attend. See detailed schedule above.
Sept 25 – INREV Climate Risk Round Table, Copenhagen, Denmark: Director, Europe, Nathalie Borgeaud, will speak at 4:30 PM on "Tools to mitigate and report on climate risk."
Nov 7 - 8 – Building Resilience 2019, Cleveland, OH: Global Director of Client Services, Yoon Kim, will speak on a panel about public-private partnerships.
Nov 29 – Climate Finance Day, Paris, France: Lisa Stanton, Nathalie Borgeaud and Senior Analyst, Léonie Chatain, will attend.
Dec 4 – 2019 HIVE Conference, Austin, TX: Strategic Advisor, Josh Sawislak, will present about how to use data to build resilience.
Jan 6 - Jan 9 – NCSE 2020 Annual Conference, Washington, DC: Yoon Kim and Lindsay Ross will speak about cross-sector resilience-building and resilient infrastructure, respectively.
Four Twenty Seven's monthly newsletter highlights recent developments on climate risk and resilience. This month we feature developments in scenario analysis for physical risks, highlight the European Union's guidance on climate risk disclosure and share the latest on financial climate risk and the need for resilience.
In Focus: Scenario Analysis for Physical Risk
Bank of England Publishes First Climate Risk Stress Test
The guidance lays out potential impacts by providing sector-specific percentages of potential loss under three scenarios by sector and by region. These quantitative financial impact assumptions are not a projection but a starting point for the insurance industry to explore potential impacts of climate change on their portfolios.
The Bank of England leveraged Four Twenty Seven's analytics on climate risk exposure in equity and real estate markets to inform its assumptions about which sectors will experience the largest impacts. We explain how data on risk exposure in equities can be leveraged for this type of analysis in our new blog series on scenario analysis.
Blog Series: Scenario Analysis for Physical Climate Risk
Our new blog series provides our reflections on how corporations and financial institutions can integrate physical climate risk into scenario analysis. Scenario analysis for physical risk is fundamentally different from transition risk. Corporations and investors increasingly recognize the need to integrate physical risk into scenario analysis but are looking for guidance and best practices on how to proceed.
Our first blog focuses on the foundations, demonstrating how characteristics of climate science affect how climate data can be used to inform scenario analysis. We argue that because physical risks over the next 10-20 years are largely independent from policy decisions and emission pathways, investors would be better served by scenario analysis that focuses on the inherent uncertainty of projected impacts, independent from assumptions on GHG emission scenarios.
The next blog focuses on Equity Markets, with concrete examples of how available data can inform financial stakeholders ready to start putting scenario analysis into action. We look at data on climate risk exposure by sector to explore how climate risk analytics can inform early developments of stress test assumptions, as done by the Bank of England.
The EU also released the Technical Expert Group (TEG) report on a taxonomy for activities that contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation. The taxonomy aims to help investors and policymakers understand which economic activities contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy, through both mitigation and resilience. It outlines qualitative screening criteria to identify adaptation of economic activities and adaptation by economic activities, providing activity-specific examples for a range of sectors. The proposed taxonomy is still under legislative review.
Second TCFD Status Report
While more firms are releasing TCFD disclosures, investors call for an increase in informative disclosure of the financial impact of climate risks. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) released its second progress report earlier this month, emphasizing that the quality of risk disclosures must continue to improve as firms build their understanding and capacity to address climate risks. 91% of surveyed firms said they plan to at least partially implement the TCFD recommendations, but only 67% plan to complete implementation within the next three years. This progress must be accompanied by continued knowledge sharing and research on financial risk pathways for climate impacts, meaningful exposure data and best practices for reporting.
Even as TCFD reporting increases, quantitative assessment of physical risk exposure lags behind. Explore physical climate risk reporting by French firms in our analysis of physical risk in Article 173 reports and stay tuned for Four Twenty Seven's forthcoming analysis on physical risk disclosure in TCFD reports.
Catastrophic Midwest Flooding Has Rippling Impacts
At the end of May only 58% and 29% of the U.S. corn and soy crops had been planted respectively. After persistent flooding beginning in Mid-March, inundated fields delayed planting. This means that some farmers will miss the planting window, which closes in June due to the heat and dryness of later summer months.
Those crops that do get planted will have to overcome soggy soil conditions and will remain at the peril of the summer's weather. It's already clear that this will be a below average crop yield, which translates into more expensive corn in cattle feed and higher prices in grocery stores.
A weak El Niño likely contributed to increased rainfall, but climate change also plays a role as warmer air holds more water. This month also saw record high temperatures in the western U.S., caused by a bulging jet stream making warm air flow south to north. While this does happen naturally, it may be happening more often due to warming ocean waters. This jet stream activity also contributes to other extreme events like the Midwest flooding.
The Need to Rethink Preparedness
From floods and heat waves to fires and hurricanes, federal recovery efforts for extreme events have cost almost half a trillion dollars since 2005. As disasters become more common and costs increase, there is an urgent need to invest in resilience proactively rather than spending billions on recovery. Last fall's Disaster Recovery Reform Act made an
"There is a silver lining to our climate challenges — economic growth. Americans are very good at innovating and building and we can leverage our need to be more resilient by growing the economy with good resilient and sustainable jobs," Sawislak wrote.
Upcoming Events
Join the Four Twenty Seven team at these events:
June 19 – Columbia University and PRI Private Round Table, New York, NY: Founder & CEO, Emilie Mazzacurati, will discuss scenario analysis for physical climate risk at this workshop.
July 4 – Japan Institutional Forum, Tokyo, Japan: Chief Development Officer, Frank Freitas, will present at this gathering of Japan's institutional investment community.
July 14 & 21 – UC Davis MBA Course on Climate Risk and Business, Davis, CA: Emilie Mazzacurati will teach this course.
The TCFD Status Report published early June 2019 reiterates the need for corporations and financial institutions to perform scenario analysis in a context of uncertainty over climate risk. It notes that while about 56% of companies use scenario analysis, only 33% perform scenario analysis for physical risk. Even fewer firms (43% of those using scenario analysis) disclose their assumptions and findings. The report contains useful case studies, but most focus on transition risk.
Yet a growing number of corporations and financial institutions recognize the need to integrate physical risk into scenario analysis and to develop resilience strategies that address imminent challenges from climate impacts. For example, the most recent IPCC report illustrating the impact of 1.5˚C increase in global temperatures on mean temperatures, extreme temperatures, extreme precipitation and sea levels shows that there will be significant implications for economies even with a 1.5˚C increase in global temperatures. This is still a best case scenario compared to impacts of 2˚C or 2.5˚C warming.
Scenario analysis for physical risk is fundamentally different from transition risk in its challenges and assumptions. This blog series provides our current reflections on how corporations and financial institutions can integrate physical climate risk into scenario analysis. This first blog presents the Foundations, focusing on important characteristics of climate science that affect how climate data can be used to inform scenario analysis for economic and financial risk. The next blog focuses on Equity Markets, with concrete examples of how available data can inform financial stakeholders ready to start putting scenario analysis into action. A forthcoming post will discuss scenario analysis at the asset level for real asset investments and corporate facilities.
Part 1: Foundations
The physical impacts of climate change encompass a range of direct and indirect hazards caused or exacerbated by the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Previous publications such as Advancing TFCD Guidance for Physical Risks and Opportunities, for which Four Twenty Seven was a lead author, provide background on these hazards as they pertain to corporate value chains and economic activities. Further information is also available in Cicero’s excellent report, Shades of Climate Risk. Categorizing climate risk for investors.
The Science: Uncertainties and Relevant Time Frames
Rapid developments in atmospheric and climate science over the past 30 years enable us to understand how these physical hazards will evolve over time due to climate change. Sophisticated global climate models project expected changes in key physical phenomena affected by greenhouse gas (GHG) concentration: heat, humidity, precipitation, ocean temperature, ocean acidification, etc. Like any other models, climate models have limitations in their accuracy and ability to correctly simulate complex and interrelated phenomena. However, it is worth noting that since 1973 models have been consistently successful in projecting within the range of warming that we have experienced in the past twenty years. More details on climate data and uncertainties from global climate models can be found in our report, Using Climate Data.
The Bad News: Impacts Are Locked In
Global climate models project different possible outcomes using scenarios called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). RCP scenarios capture differing GHG emissions trajectories based on a representation of plausible global policy outcomes, without specifying the details of the underlying policies that could generate this outcome. These scenarios show that GHG emissions generated over the coming decades will influence the severity of impacts in the long-term, but also that we are already committed to some impacts through 2100 and beyond.
This is particularly noticeable over the “short term.” When looking at the next 10 to 20 years, projections for temperature and other physical hazards do not present significant differences under different emissions scenarios (Fig 1). This is due to the massive inertia of the Earth’s systems, and the life expectancy of the stock of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. To put it simply, significantly reducing GHG emissions is akin to applying the brakes on a rapidly moving truck. It won’t stop instantaneously. Even if we were to stop emitting GHG altogether, climate change would persist. In the words of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), climate change “represents a substantial multi-century commitment created by the past, present, and future emissions of CO2.”
Figure 1. Temperature increases under different GHG emissions scenarios in the near term. Source: IPCC, as published by Climate Lab Book.
This is by no mean an invitation to give up on reducing GHG emissions. Quite the opposite. Emission reductions are critical to curbing long term impacts and avoiding irreversible effects to our environment (Fig. 2). But for organizations looking at climate data and scenario analysis for risk management and strategy, with a focus on the coming decade(s), this is a critical fact to understand.
Figure 2. Temperature increases under different GHG emissions scenarios through 2300 from IPCC AR 5: Figure 12.5 | Time series of global annual mean surface air temperature anomalies (relative to 1986–2005) from CMIP5 concentration-driven experiments. Projections are shown for each RCP for the multi-model mean (solid lines) and the 5 to 95% range (±1.64 standard deviation) across the distribution of individual models (shading). Discontinuities at 2100 are due to different numbers of models performing the extension runs beyond the 21st century and have no physical meaning. Only one ensemble member is used from each model and numbers in the figure indicate the number of different models contributing to the different time periods. No ranges are given for the RCP6.0 projections beyond 2100 as only two models are available.Aside from RCP-driven scenarios, there is, of course, a broad range of possible increases in temperature (and other climate hazards) even when looking at the 2030-2040 time frame. These plausible differences are not so much policy-driven as science-driven, demonstrating the different possible responses from the Earth’s systems to the existing stock of GHG.
These differences have significant implications for businesses and investors. For example, a model of sea level rise developed in 2018 incorporates accelerated rates of melting and recent advancements in modelling ice-cliff dynamics to capture extreme risk of coastal flooding. The model shows the Atlantic rising by 1.2m (3.9ft) by 2060 on the Florida coastline, which would equate to widespread flooding of coastal properties with potential domino effects on real estate prices across the state (Fig 3). The ‘intermediate’ scenario, however, most often used for planning, predicts only a 55cm (1.8ft) rise in water levels. While reducing GHG emissions does reduce the risk of more extreme sea level rise millennia into the future, year after year, scientists find that the Antarctic is warming faster than anybody predicted, and there is increasing concern that the process of ice sheet melt may be too far advanced to be stopped.
Figure 3. Building-level perspective of inundation in downtown Miami under 1m (3.3ft). Red buildings are those most likely to be impacted and blue areas are inundated. Source: NOAA Office for Coastal Management.
Thus, performing scenario analysis where the key variable is GHG emission reduction targets may not be an accurate representation of the range of possible outcomes for the near future. Rather, looking at high and low warming projections across a large set of models to understand the range of potential outcomes (independent of the underlying RCP scenario) is a better way to understand potential risk. In other words, physical risks over the next 10-20 years are largely independent from policy decisions and emission pathways, and a rapid, orderly, effective transition to a low-carbon economy could still come with massive physical impacts as these processes are already under way, fueled by the past 150 years of GHG emissions.
The Worse News: Tipping Points
Another challenge is that climate scientists are not currently able to model certain possible impacts from climate change, commonly known as “tipping points.” Tipping points is a catch-all term for a wide range of phenomena that may accelerate feedbacks due to climate change, though the timing or probability of their manifestation is currently not well understood. The phenomena are known as tipping points because past a certain threshold, they may not be reversible, even with a dramatic reduction in GHG emissions. Tipping points of most concern to the scientific community are presented in this report from the Environmental Defense Fund.
Some tipping points catalyze “feedback loops” which can worsen and dramatically accelerate climate change beyond human control. Such is the case, for example, with melting ice sheets, which would not only lead to catastrophic sea level rise, but would also further heat up the planet as the poles’ albedo (reflectivity) is reduced after the ice disappears. Thawing permafrost could lead to massive amounts of methane, a particularly powerful GHG, to be released from the frozen tundra into the atmosphere (in addition to many direct impacts for local communities, infrastructure and ecosystems in the region).
Tipping points further reinforce uncertainty about severity and timing of these extreme impacts and the limitations of using RCP scenarios to understand the range of outcomes for physical risk.
Figure 4. The likely risks to human and natural systems under several global warming scenarios, with dark purple representing high risks of severe impacts with limited reversibility and white indicating no attributable impacts. Source: IPCC, 2018
These indirect or second-order hazards are as relevant as first-order impacts to understand the implications of physical climate change on economic outcomes, but they’re not captured by RCP scenarios and many require stand-alone models that cannot easily be integrated into one clean set of scenarios.
Conclusion
Scenario analysis is often approached from the perspective of transition risk, where policy developments and GHG emission targets are the key drivers of risk pathways over the next 10 to 30 years. Physical risk, however, requires a different approach. Impacts over the coming decades are largely locked-in and are only marginally influenced by GHG emission pathways. In contrast, uncertainty looms large regarding how severe these physical hazards will be, and exploring a range of possible outcomes for physical risk, including looking at tail-risks, provides important insights for risk management and financial analysis. In summary, the current state of scientific knowledge and the nature of the Earth’s atmospheric systems call for the developments of scenarios that are decoupled from transition/policy scenarios and instead focused on key scientific drivers of uncertainty and risks that may be experienced regardless of policy decisions over the short to medium term (2020-2040).
While efforts to develop easy-to-use tools for physical risk analysis are nascent, organizations can still extract important insights from climate data and leverage estimates of risk exposure across portfolios. Our next blog in this series provides examples of how financial institutions can leverage data on physical risk exposure in equities to inform some early scenario analysis in equity markets.
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Four Twenty Seven’s data products and portfolio analytics support risk reporting and enable investors and businesses to understand their exposure to physical climate risks across asset classes.
As climate change impacts worsen, the need for solutions to support adaptation grows. Founder & CEO, Emilie Mazzacurati, joined Molly Wood on Marketplace Tech to discuss climate risk analytics. The conversation covers the importance of understanding climate risk exposure and how companies leverage climate data to prepare for climate hazards. While recent findings on sea level rise and other climate impacts can be daunting, there is hope for adaptation that builds resilience across sectors.
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![Figure 12.5 | Time series of global annual mean surface air temperature anomalies (relative to 1986–2005) from CMIP5 concentration-driven experiments. Projections are shown for each RCP for the multi-model mean (solid lines) and the 5 to 95% range (±1.64 standard deviation) across the distribution of individual models (shading). Discontinuities at 2100 are due to different numbers of models performing the extension runs beyond the 21st century and have no physical meaning. Only one ensemble member is used from each model and numbers in the figure indicate the number of different models contributing to the different time periods. No ranges are given for the RCP6.0 projections beyond 2100 as only two models are available.Source IPCC AR5: Collins, M., R. Knutti, J. Arblaster, J.-L. Dufresne, T. Fichefet, P. Friedlingstein, X. Gao, W.J. Gutowski, T. Johns, G. Krinner, M. Shongwe, C. Tebaldi, A.J. Weaver and M. Wehner, 2013: Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 1029–1136, doi:10.1017/CBO9781107415324.024.](http://427mt.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/ipcc-rcp-1024x688.jpg)
