The News
Homeowners and insurance companies will pay the price if the Trump administration rolls back federal climate science agencies and disaster resilience planning, a climate executive at one of the world’s largest reinsurance brokers told Semafor.
One key lesson of the last decade responding to escalating climate change disasters is that even small investments in preparation yield huge savings in the cost of rebuilding, said Liz Henderson, global head of climate risk advisory at Aon.
Advance planning, including the use of climate science to forecast future risks, is critical for enabling home insurance companies to avoid the massive post-disaster payouts that can drive them to abandon vulnerable areas altogether, as many have done in places like California and Florida.
Federal agencies are essential in that process, Henderson said. Yet federal climate research and preparation efforts are in the crosshairs of policy advisers to the Trump administration, and Henderson said she’s concerned that the new administration will not sufficiently appreciate climate risk.
“My fear is that then there’ll be events that happen that people will suffer from, and they’ll have to learn a lesson in a harder way,” she said.