Corporate Climate Change Series. What gets measured gets managed – taking the initiative on climate adaptation, P3

Shidonna Raven
2 days ago
2 min read

By Veronica Scotti

January 13, 2024

Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,

The cost of natural disasters

Climatic natural disasters caused global economic losses of $275 billion in 2022 – and this trend is expected to continue as economic growth and property development increase the exposed economic value. On top of this, the global protection gap — the difference between economic and insured losses — has been rising steadily over the last five years. The Swiss Re Institute’s Resilience Index shows that it reached a new high of $1.8 trillion in 2022. Over 40% of global risks remain uninsured.

Climate losses are only set to grow — to figure out how to best adapt, we need a way to measure the value of our climate investments.Image: Swiss Re Institute.
We are seeing progress on climate mitigation. Take, for example, the World Economic Forum Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, where member organizations have in aggregate achieved a 10% emissions reduction between 2019 and 2021.
But whether it’s floods in Australia and South Africa, winter storms in Europe or heatwaves in China and the Americas, the effects of climate change are already being felt worldwide. That means we need to start putting more focus on climate adaptation, alongside our mitigation efforts.
We are seeing climate change adaptation examples in action in projects across the world. For example, the 2011 Brisbane Floods in Australia damaged over 420,000 buildings. Subsequently, the landscape around the river has now been transformed by “floating ferry stops”, raised living spaces and improved stormwater management systems, increasing the city’s resilience.
It is well known that besides addressing risks, investing in climate adaptation can create a competitive advantage, support economic stability, create job opportunities and protect the natural environment. However, although there are measurable targets for mitigation and work on standardization continues, the same cannot be said for climate adaptation. This impedes the investment and finance necessary to get climate adaptation projects off the ground.