IUCRC Planning Grant Duke University: Center for Innovation in Risk-analysis for Climate Adaptation and Decision-making (CIRCAD)

气候变化给社会和经济带来了多种相互作用的风险，预计这种风险只会随着进一步变暖而加剧。充分的风险管理对一个可行的保险业至关重要。大多数保险、再保险、巨灾建模和数据服务公司都认为，气候风险带来了独特的挑战，阻碍了这一经济部门的发展。挑战包括气候风险的非线性和相互关联性质、全球气候情景的不确定性以及关键精算数据的缺乏。因此，保险市场正在努力平衡消费者获得负担得起的保险的利益和保险公司保持偿付能力的需要。提议成立一个产学研合作研究中心（ICURC），即气候适应与决策风险分析创新中心（CIRCAD），并为其整个中心规划过程提供资金，这将满足对气候风险带来的系统性挑战进行更多基于科学的研究的需求，并创造新的保险策略和产品。该中心由两所大学组成（杜克大学和乔治亚大学）。它将吸引不同的利益相关方作为中心成员，代表保险部门及其价值链。该中心的会员要缴纳会员费才能加入。然后，该行业的资金用于资助大学教师提出的项目，这些项目解决了由中心成员共同确定的最高优先级部门需求。该中心将开展跨学科、高影响力的竞争前研究，旨在改进气候风险模型，并促进风险分配和评估方面更广泛的、全行业的创新，以适应目前受气候变化带来的不可预测性影响的行业产品和实践。这项工作的更广泛影响包括提供解决方案，确保在危机时期提供金融保护，鼓励减少社会风险，保护弱势社区，并促进为需要协同风险信号和管理能力的其他经济部门制定和部署气候解决方案。其他更广泛的影响包括招聘、指导和发展一支多样化、训练有素、应对气候变化的劳动力队伍。拟成立的气候适应与决策风险分析创新中心（CIRCAD）将专注于解决当前的保险危机。它的动机是为保险业开发创造性和可实施的解决方案，保险业的损失是由气候变化造成的。这将通过前沿研究和跨部门合作来实现。它还将解决监管问题，并通过克服行业缺乏平衡来创建气候适应型社会的必要性。行业缺乏平衡导致价格信号模糊，市场效率低下，激励措施不一致，阻碍了公共和私人对气候友好型项目的投资。该中心将专注于在系统层面推进保险解决方案。实现这一愿景需要跨学科、高影响力的研究，将数据科学与建模、风险评估与决策理论、经济学与政策相结合。这些要素必须结合起来，以创建和评估创新的、可操作的气候风险管理战略、产品和实践。该中心将由杜克大学和佐治亚大学的25名或更多的教师和高级研究人员组成，他们来自工程、气候科学、公共政策、决策科学、经济学、法律、统计学和计算机等领域。教师团队准备与保险行业和其他感兴趣的各方合作，开发一个行业，高优先级，高影响力的项目组合。预期的智力进步包括：确定有效和公平管理气候相关金融风险的分析和治理战略；提高对主观气候风险感知及其对风险管理决策影响的理解；确定极端高温与健康结果之间的联系；发展全国范围的多灾害表征贝叶斯概率方法；制定弹性指标，为规划、保护和投资提供信息。这些进展不仅将满足保险业的需求，而且通过向社区、政策制定者和非政府组织传播本研究产生的知识和工具，将在全国范围内加强气候决策和抵御能力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Climate change poses multiple interacting risks to society and the economy which are only expected to intensify with additional warming. Adequate managing of risk is critical for a viable insurance industry. Most insurance, re-insurance, catastrophe modeling, and data services firms have concluded that climate risk poses unique challenges that are holding back this sector of the economy. Challenges include the non-linear and interconnected nature of climate risks, the uncertainty of global climate scenarios, and the paucity of critical actuarial data. As a result, insurance markets are struggling to balance consumers’ interests for access to affordable insurance against the insurers’ need to remain solvent. The proposed formation of an industry-university cooperative research center (ICURC), the Center for Innovation in Risk-analysis for Climate Adaptation and Decision-making (CIRCAD), and funding of its full Center planning process, will address the need for more science-based research on the systemic challenges posed by climate risk the creation of novel new insurance strategies and products. The proposed Center consists of two university Sites (Duke University and the University of Georgia). It will engage a diverse collection of interested parties as Center members who represent the insurance sector and its value chain. Members of the Center pay a membership fee to join. This industry money is then used to fund university-faculty proposed projects that address the highest priority sector needs that are collectively determined by Center members. The proposed Center will undertake interdisciplinary, high-impact, pre-competitive research that seeks to both improve climate risk modeling as well as foster broader, sector-wide innovations in risk distribution and assessment that align with industry products and practices now impacted by the unpredictability brought on by climate change. Broader impacts of the work include providing solutions to ensure financial protection in times of crisis, as well as incentivizing societal risk reduction, safeguarding vulnerable communities, and catalyzing the development and deployment of climate solutions for other sectors of the economy that require synergistic risk signaling and management capabilities. Other broader impacts include recruiting, mentoring, and developing a diverse, highly-trained, climate-ready workforce.The proposed Center for Innovation in Risk-analysis for Climate Adaptation and Decision-making (CIRCAD) will focus on tackling the present insurance crisis. It is motivated by developing creative and implementable solutions for the insurance industry whose losses are being driven by climate change. This will take place through cutting-edge research and cross-sector collaboration. It will also address regulatory issues and the need to create a climate-resilient society by overcoming a lack of balance in the industry which creates market inefficiencies in the form of obscured price signals and misaligned incentives which discourages public and private investment in climate-friendly projects. The proposed Center will focus on advancing insurance solutions at a systems level. Realization of the vision requires interdisciplinary, high-impact research that integrates data science and modeling, risk assessment and decision theory, and economics and policy. These element must be brought together to create and evaluate innovative and actionable climate risk management strategies, products, and practices. The proposed Center will consist of 25 or more faculty and senior researchers at Duke and the University of Georgia in the fields of engineering, climate science, public policy, decision science, economics, law, statistics, and computing. The faculty team is poised to engage with the insurance industry and other interested parties to develop a portfolio of sector, high-priority, high-impact projects. Anticipated intellectual advances include: identification of analytical and governance strategies for effective and equitable management of climate-related financial risk; improved understanding of subjective climate risk perceptions and their effect on risk management decisions; determination of the link between extreme heat and health outcomes; development of national-scale Bayesian probabilistic methods for multi-hazard characterization; and development of resilience metrics to inform planning, protection, and investment. Such advances will not only support the needs of the insurance sector, but, by disseminating the knowledge and tools produced by this research to communities, policymakers, and non-governmental organizations, will enhance climate decision-making and resilience on a national scale.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.