Guest: Dr Swenja Surminiski
Date and Time: 22 June 2022, 18:00 GMT
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About the Event:
Climate change has led to increased frequency and intensity of floods over the last years. These severe weather events have caused loss of life and billions in infrastructure damages, and threaten the health and food security. Swenja will discuss the role of insurance in the fight against climate change, including climate risk management and resilience strategies focusing on public policy, financial instruments and corporate strategies.
Speaker Biography:
Swenja is an expert on climate resilience, adaptation, disaster risk management and sustainable finance, with a special focus on the role of the private sector and insurance. She currently works as Head of Adaptation Research at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, is Associate Principal at Vivid Economics, and runs Surminski Consulting.
A political scientist and ecological economist by training, her work embraces environmental, social and economic perspectives, with a focus on urban communities and the private sector. Her work focuses on capacity building, translation and knowledge transfer between science, policy and industry, building on her work in the insurance industry and as an advisor to governments, the private sector and civil society.
Swenja has set up a new urban flood resilience governance research group as part of the Zurich Flood Resilience Alliance project, and leads an investigation of the Resilience Impact of Climate Insurance (ERICI). She has published widely on these topics, is a contributing author to the IPCC and lead author of the business and industry chapter for the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2 and 3. She works closely with industry and policymakers and was appointed Visiting Academic at the Bank of England in 2015 to work on the regulator’s first report on climate change.
In addition to her academic career, Swenja has spent more than 10 years in the international insurance industry working on climate risks and risk management. She is advising a wide range of stakeholders, including governments, international organizations and the private sector on insurance and climate risks, including recent work with the ADB, OECD, KfW, UNFCCC’s Loss and Damage Work program, the Worldbank, UK’s DFID, Germany’s GIZ, ClimateWise and the Geneva Association.
She appears regularly in print, TV and online media.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE RECORDING OF THIS EVENT