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

气候变化对社会和经济构成多重相互作用的风险，预计这些风险只会随着进一步变暖而加剧。适当的风险管理对保险业的生存至关重要。大多数保险、再保险、巨灾建模和数据服务公司都得出结论，气候风险构成了独特的挑战，阻碍了这一经济领域的发展。挑战包括气候风险的非线性和相互关联性、全球气候情景的不确定性以及关键精算数据的缺乏。因此，保险市场正努力在消费者获得负担得起的保险的利益与保险公司保持偿付能力的需要之间取得平衡。提议建立一个产学合作研究中心(ICURC)，即气候适应和决策风险分析创新中心(CIRCAD)，并为其整个中心规划进程提供资金，这将满足对气候风险构成的系统性挑战进行更多以科学为基础的研究的需要，包括建立新的保险战略和产品。拟建中心由两所大学组成(佐治亚大学和杜克大学)。它将吸收不同的相关方作为代表保险业及其价值链的中心成员。中心会员需缴纳会员费才能入会。这笔行业资金随后被用来资助大学教职员工提出的项目，这些项目解决了由中心成员集体决定的最优先部门的需求。拟建的中心将进行跨学科、高影响力、竞争前的研究，寻求改善气候风险建模，并在风险分配和评估方面促进更广泛的全部门创新，使其与目前受气候变化带来的不可预测性影响的行业产品和做法保持一致。这项工作的更广泛影响包括提供解决方案，以确保在危机时期提供财政保护，以及激励减少社会风险，保护脆弱社区，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的、训练有素的、适应气候变化的劳动力队伍。拟议的气候适应和决策风险分析创新中心(CIRCAD)将专注于应对当前的保险危机。它的动机是为保险业开发创造性和可实施的解决方案，该行业的损失是由气候变化造成的。这将通过尖端研究和跨部门合作来实现。它还将解决监管问题，以及通过克服该行业缺乏平衡来创建一个气候适应性社会的必要性。该行业缺乏平衡，造成市场低效，表现为模糊的价格信号和错位的激励措施，这阻碍了公共和私人对气候友好型项目的投资。拟议的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，这些研究整合了数据科学和建模、风险评估和决策理论以及经济学和政策。必须将这些要素结合在一起，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。拟建的中心将由杜克大学和佐治亚大学在工程、气候科学、公共政策、决策科学、经济、法律、统计和计算领域的25名或更多教职员工和高级研究人员组成。教师团队准备与保险业和其他感兴趣的各方合作，开发一系列行业、高优先级、高影响的项目。预期的智力进展包括：确定有效和公平管理与气候有关的金融风险的分析和治理战略；更好地了解主观的气候风险认知及其对风险管理决策的影响；确定极端高温与健康后果之间的联系；开发国家规模的贝叶斯概率方法，用于描述多种危害；制定复原力指标，为规划、保护和投资提供信息。这些进展不仅将支持保险部门的需求，而且通过向社区、政策制定者和非政府组织传播这项研究产生的知识和工具，将增强国家范围内的气候决策和应变能力。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 (University of Georgia and Duke University). 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.