Takeaways from OST's first year hosting events as part of New York Climate Week

 
By Heidi Waite
 

Among all the hustle and bustle of New York City last month, you may have spotted three OST staff members running around on the streets and subway. Why were we, a team of Californians, in the Big Apple? Climate Week of course! Climate Week NYC is an annual event hosted by Climate Group in partnership with the United Nations General Assembly where creative, dedicated national and international leaders from local and government decision makers, nonprofits, legislature, and more come together to drive climate action. With over 900 events and activities across the City of New York, we participated in a suite of gatherings and meetings, spoke on panels, and even hosted two events of our own to explore the potential of climate finance and insurance for coastal resilience and nature based solutions (NBS).

First, we partnered with the California Department of Insurance and nonprofit Innsure to bring together funders, insurance experts, state government, and federal government over dinner to explore opportunities to incentivize community-up approaches to insurability planning to bolster economic resilience in a climate future. OST also co-hosted a workshop with the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz to discuss and learn about innovative policy and finance tools to accelerate NBS. This session, with opening remarks by Assemblymember Damon Connolly, brought together legislative members, private sector professionals, scientists, and practitioners to generate ideas for advancing NBS via innovative policy and finance tools.

We had deep, substantive discussion throughout the week and now having come back to California, we’ve compiled some of our key takeaways:

  • Parametric insurance is gaining momentum in the US: Parametric insurance (also called trigger-based or index insurance), which a risk transfer product built around a particular threshold (e.g., hurricane wind force, flood extent) instead of a time-intensive damage assessment process like familiar indemnity insurance, is starting to take hold in the US. Experts view parametric as a potentially valuable complement to traditional insurance and one that has already been creatively applied to insure nature or improve economic resilience for socially vulnerable communities. We met many new organizations and startups working to develop new parametric products, including what might be the first parametric flood product sold to a municipality in California.
  • Who pays the premium? This is one of the biggest questions and challenges when developing innovative insurance. It is an important question as the industry looks to scale products, and when considering equity issues of communities or households that are unable to pay the premiums. Current pilot projects were funded through science grants (e.g., a NYC flood parametric insurance pilot was funded by the National Science Foundation) or charitable funds (e.g., the Hawaiian Reef Insurance). Blended finance, especially for smaller projects without a proven track record for investors, could help tackle some of these barriers. There have been a few promising examples of funding projects through city budgets (e.g., the previously mentioned new parametric flood product in California) or government (e.g., Kenya Livestock Insurance Programme).
  • Accelerating Nature-Based Solutions: Discussion around nature-based solutions had a strong presence across a multitude of events at Climate Week including our own events, FEMA’s event, ORRAA’s member meeting, Innsure’s Forum, and many more. Given how crucial nature is to our economy, health, and national security, it’s no surprise NBS was such a hot topic. Many expressed a need for local coordination and ownership of NBS, suggesting there’s a role for states like California to not just partner with federal efforts (e.g., expanding funding for pilots, natural capital accounts, asking agencies to consider NBS, including nature in benefit-cost analysis), but show leadership in adopting NBS and crafting policies that consider nature in decision-making processes. There was a strong underlying sentiment that NBS are important as municipalities, states, and the country look toward adaptation.
  • Equity in innovative insurance: There are still many big questions around how to create innovative insurance products, especially for communities, individuals, and local governments who can’t afford to pay premiums.
  • Data needs: We heard a call for data to be made useful, usable, and communicated to the public so municipalities and individuals can make informed risk reduction decisions. Similarly, some have called for data transparency in models in industry insurance models to help users understand the process and empower them to reduce costs and mitigate risks. There has also been a call for more partnership and data sharing between data holders including start-ups, federal agencies, and insurance companies.

Beyond mere food for thought, many of these points highlight key areas where science can play a powerful role in unlocking the potential of innovative coastal resilience approaches. Moving forward, OST will continue to leverage the connections and insights from Climate Week to bring the latest science and innovative ideas back to Californian and work towards increasing the resilience of our coastal communities to future climates.

And finally, to end on a more personal note: not only was it an exhilarating week of mingling, learning, and exchanging ideas, but also my first time visiting New York City! It really is the city that doesn’t sleep, but a perfect venue to contain the excitement, creativity, and energy of Climate Week. It was an inspiring experience!

Nine people wearing suits smile at the camera. A map is visible on a projector screen to their right.
Organizers and speakers at OST’s New York Climate Week workshop, from left to right: Rachel Stewart, Heidi Waite, Anthony Rogers, Assemblymember Damon Connolly, Merissa Zuzulock, Michael Beck, Heather Tallis, Kiya Bibby, and Rae Taylors-Burns
< Back