Harnessing high-quality data for climate resilience

When discussing climate resilience, accessibility to – and quality of – data is crucial. Equally important is how different stakeholders (e.g. companies, regulators, supervisors, governments, local entities) use and process them, which insights they extract from data analysis, and how sound decisions are informed based on data-driven knowledge. Data should not be considered as an outcome, but rather as a means to inform decision-making.

One of the key challenges in closing the climate protection gap is shifting the risk management approach from a reactive mode to a proactive/preventive mode. Of the climate-related events that have occurred over the last two decades, only 30 % of the incurred economic losses were insured. Moreover, just 12 % of the current investments addressing climate disasters focus on preparedness, risk reduction and adaptation, with the rest being allocated to disaster response and recovery.

Apostolos Thomadakis, Ph.D., is Research Fellow at ECMI and CEPS.