Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the second report under the Sixth Assessment Cycle (AR6) which looks at climate impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. It examines how human-induced climate change is contributing to increased vulnerability of human, physical, and natural systems of the world, and the important role adaptation can play globally in managing these impacts.

One story of the report is a new level of robustness to which degree scientists attribute increased frequency and severity of disasters and their financial consequences to anthropogenic climate change. There remains little doubt that global warming and its impacts are driving a large part of economic and financial losses and damages to the world’s population. Even if there will be radical efforts to reduce the Green House Gases in the coming decades to put the world on the course of 1.5 degrees, individual and collective actions are required at all scales to substantially increase the social and financial resilience of the world’s vulnerable and marginalized population.

Current global financial flows are inadequate and insufficient to provide financial protection and build the financial resilience of the people who are most at risk of loss and damage from climate change. Based on empirical evidence and principles of justice, transforming global and regional risk finance and insurance governance and architecture will play an essential part in building financial resilience among the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized populations.

Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-working-group-ii/

Listen to MCII executive director Soenke Kreft on the IPCC report:

https://twitter.com/UNUEHS/status/1498281945263915012?s=20&t=iBrEeX1PXqC6Lj0zYK5upA