The Economics of Climate Change Lecture Series

Learn from four economists who are leading national and global discussions about the economic damages of climate change and the policies that can help us prepare for its effects.

Carolyn Kousky is founder of Insurance for Good, Associate Vice President for Economics and Policy at Environmental Defense Fund, and a Senior Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is author of Understanding Disaster Insurance: New Tools for a More Resilient Future and an editor of A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation. She is a member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance at the U.S. Department of Treasury, a member of the High-Level Advisory Board on the Financial Management of Catastrophic Risks at the OECD, and the vice-chair of the California Climate Insurance Working Group. She has published numerous articles, reports, and book chapters on the economics and policy of climate risk and disaster finance, and she is routinely cited in media outlets. Kousky has a BS in Earth Systems from Stanford University and a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Climate change is escalating the risks of many weather-related extreme events. These changing risks are breaking insurance markets at a moment when we need the financial protection that insurance can provide more than ever. Dr. Kousky will explore the history of disaster insurance and the important role it has played in disaster recovery. She will unpack the current challenges in insurance markets in the United States, including rising premiums, insurers pulling back from high-risk areas, and a transfer of risk from private to public balance sheets. The talk will conclude with a discussion of innovations and public policies that can help create insurable communities for our climate future.

Sponsored by the Walter Krause Economics Lecture Fund, the Reed College Economics Department, and the Reed College Environmental Studies Program. Free and open to the public.