North America

October 8, 2020

Canadian oil and gas province Alberta aims to export hydrogen

Rod Nickel

Fuel Cell Works

Energy Transition, Climate Change, Energy, Gas Prices, Hydrogen, North America

The Canadian province of Alberta will look to use its plentiful natural gas reserves to become an exporter of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel, by 2040, Premier Jason Kenney said on Tuesday. Putting Alberta on the ‘hydrogen map’ will help position it at the forefront of future changes in energy.

October 2, 2020

Americans are becoming climate migrants before our eyes

Alex Domash

Samuel Corum/AFP/Getty Images

Climate Change, Climate Migrants, Impacts, North America

More than 8,100 wildfires have burned over 3.9m acres in California this year. The fires have killed 30 people, destroyed more than 7,500 structures, and displaced thousands in the state. Meanwhile in Oregon, half a million people were put under an evacuation order. The message from the visceral scenes unfolding in the western US is clear: climate displacement isn’t something that happens only outside of our borders. It has already begun in the US, and we can no longer turn our backs on the more than 20 million climate migrants worldwide.

September 21, 2020

Eye of Sauron

Climate Change, Economic Impacts, Finance sector, Insurance, North America, risk, Stress Test, Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TFCD), wildfires

Smoke from the West Coast traveled across the US this week and is now well on its way to Europe. From our HQ in NYC – the sky was hazy and the sun resembled the Eye of Sauron. Climate change risk has plagued US insurers over the last several years and the severity is growing. A task force led by several US financial regulators issued a 200-page report warning that climate change poses “serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system.” Many central banks in other countries are conducting climate “stress tests,” and, in Europe, many companies are now reporting their climate risks. Riskthinking.AI helps clients better understand their climate-related financial risk so they know where their portfolios are exposed and can hedge or take other appropriate actions.

September 15, 2020

How Climate Migration Will Reshape America

Abrahm Lustgarten

Meridith Kohut

Extreme Weather, Climate Change, North America, risk factor, wildfires

August besieged California with a heat unseen in generations. A surge in air-conditioning broke the state’s electrical grid, leaving a population already ravaged by the coronavirus to work remotely by the dim light of their cellphones. By mid-month, the state had recorded possibly the hottest temperature ever measured on earth — 130 degrees in Death Valley — and an otherworldly storm of lightning had cracked open the sky. From Santa Cruz to Lake Tahoe, thousands of bolts of electricity exploded down onto withered grasslands and forests, some of them already hollowed out by climate-driven infestations of beetles and kiln-dried by the worst five-year drought on record. Soon, California was on fire. Riskthinking.AI examines and prices intersecting and cascading risks such as these using algorithmically-generated scenarios-tools and analytics.

September 15, 2020

7 Ways You’re Already Paying for Climate Change

Jennifer R. Marlon

Copernicus Sentinel (2020), processed by ESA

Climate Change, Climate Narratives, Decision-making, Economic Impacts, North America, risk, uncertainty

Since 1980, the U.S. has sustained 273 weather and climate disasters exceeding $1 billion in damages. Yet Americans still overwhelmingly consider climate change an “environmental issue” and a largely distant, future risk rather than a here-and-now problem. According to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, only 45% of Americans think people in the U.S. are being harmed by global warming “right now.”

September 9, 2020

Federal Report Warns of Financial Havoc From Climate Change

Coral Davenport and Jeanna Smialek

Cindy Yamanaka/The Orange County Register, via Associated Press

Climate Change, Future, Governments, Health Impacts, heatwaves, Livelihood Impacts, North America, Property Impacts, risk factor, Scenarios, Sea-level Rise, wildfires

A report commissioned by federal regulators overseeing the nation’s commodities markets has concluded that climate change threatens U.S. financial markets, as the costs of wildfires, storms, droughts and floods spread through insurance and mortgage markets, pension funds and other financial institutions. Riskthinking helps decision-makers better understand the climate-related financial risks they face and respond accordingly.

August 24, 2020

Fast-Moving California Wildfires Boosted by Climate Change

Anne C. Mulkern

wildfires, Climate Change, Drought, Ecological Impacts, Economic Impacts, Extreme Weather, Health Impacts, Insurance, North America, Property Impacts, risk factor

Firefighters battled nearly two dozen wildfires in California yesterday after a week of raging blazes blackened more than 1 million acres across the state. The rapidly spreading fire, which has killed five people, destroyed more than 1,000 structures and forced thousands to flee, is the result of hotter temperatures, less dependable precipitation and snowpack that melts sooner leading to drier soil and parched vegetation, shows how climate change is affecting the nation’s most populous state.

August 16, 2020

Hotter, wetter, wilder: St. John’s gets climate projections for 2050

Juanita Mercer

Climate Change, Extreme Weather, North America, Precipitation, risk factor, Temperature Increase

We agree with the Resilient St. John’s Climate Plan – “Climate change continues to be the biggest challenge of our generation. As with COVID-19, we also need to flatten the global warming curve before it’s too late.” To do so, city officials, planners and members of the business community need the kinds of scenarios and analyses tools that Riskthinking.ai has developed for better understanding climate and COVID-19 related risks.

June 29, 2020

Unprecedented Drought Challenges for Texas Water Resources in a Changing Climate: What Do Researchers and Stakeholders Need to Know?

John W. Nielsen‐Gammon, Jay L. Banner, Benjamin I. Cook, Darrel M. Tremaine, Corinne I. Wong, Robert E. Mace, Huilin Gao, Zong‐Liang Yang, Marisa Flores Gonzalez, Richard Hoffpauir, Tom Gooch, Kevin Kloesel

Associated Press, registercitizen.com

Climate Change, Decision-making, Drought, Ecological Impacts, Economic Impacts, Fresh Water, North America, Policy, risk factor

We agree that long‐range water planning is complicated by factors that are rapidly changing in the 21st century, including climate, population, and water use. Riskthinking.ai’s forward-looking scenarios can enable projections and decisions that best serve water stakeholder needs.

May 22, 2020

Mississippi Delta marshes in a state of irreversible collapse

Tulane University

Restore The Mississippi River Delta

Climate Change, Ecological Impacts, Ecosystem Services, Flooding, Fresh Water, Future, North America, risk factor, Sea-level Rise

Given the present-day rate of global sea-level rise, remaining marshes in the Mississippi Delta are likely to drown, according to a new Tulane University study.

Categories