Importance of Climate Modeling
Description
Accurate climate predictions are an important tool to help government and corporate planners prepare for the growing risks of climate change. However, mainstream climate predictions such as those from government agencies are often too cautious and may be subject to political interference.
Investors are putting capital into climate-intelligence systems that use predictive analytics to help governments and companies better anticipate and prepare for extreme-weather events and avoid costly mistakes. Large financial firms, in particular, are rapidly buying up companies that offer climate-modeling services, but current climate models can differ significantly in the assumptions and methods they use to model climate risk. Inaccurate risk assessments could prove costly.
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Abstracts That Inspired This Pattern
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SC-2022-03-02-025: Wall Street's Big Appetite for Climate Data Leaves Out the Rest of Us
Large financial firms are rapidly buying up companies that offer climate-modeling services. Financial firms may soon have a monopoly on understanding which areas face climate risks. But the highest demand for climate-modeling companies has come from financial-ratings agencies, which claim that they are using the data to rate companies' ESG (environmental, social, and governance) performance.
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SC-2022-03-02-049: Study Finds That Reducing Poverty Is Not at Odds with Climate Goals
"Moving 1 billion people out of poverty would only slightly increase emissions."
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SC-2022-03-02-071: Study Finds Western Drought Is the Worst in 1,200 Years
According to an analysis from the University of California, Los Angeles, the drought that has existed in the western United States since 2000 is even worse than scientists previously understood it to be. Global warming has greatly magnified the drought's severity. Indeed, without global warming's contribution, the drought would be only about 60% as severe as it is.
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SC-2022-03-02-090: Several Major Companies Fail a Test of Their Climate Pledges
A study from NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch evaluated 25 major companies' climate pledges and found that only 4 of the 25 companies had climate pledges with "reasonable" or "moderate" integrity. The remaining companies' climate pledges were largely worthless.