17 June 2025
The 黑料正能量 has provided a which has been included in reports sent to global finance ministers. These reports were provided ahead of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Group (WBG) 2025 Spring Meetings in late April.
IFoA Fellows and sustainability risk actuaries Sandy Trust and Georgi Bedenham sit on the Technical Advisory Group set up to advise the . This coalition is supported by the IMF and WBG and brings together fiscal and economic policymakers from 97 countries.
The series of IFoA research reports started in 2022 with 鈥�Climate Emergency 鈥� tipping the odds in our favour: A climate change policy briefing for COP27鈥�. In 2023, we released 鈥�Emperor鈥檚 New Climate Scenarios 鈥� a warning for financial services鈥�. This was followed in 2024 with 鈥�Climate Scorpion 鈥� the sting is in the tail鈥�. Although coming too late for the IMF/WBG spring meeting briefings to finance ministers, the latest in the series was released in January 2025 entitled 鈥�Planetary Solvency 鈥� finding our balance with nature鈥�.
Sandy Trust, IFoA Council member and IFoA Climate Risk series lead author, said:
鈥淭here is an urgent need for finance ministries to include realistic and current climate assessments risk into their economic analysis and modelling approaches. Global warming has accelerated, and the 12-month average temperature is now above the 1.5掳C goal. This is driving increasingly severe impacts 鈥� fires, floods, heat, and droughts 鈥� which are coming sooner than expected, are worse than expected and outside model projections. Climate change is fast becoming a national security issue with food, water and heat stresses impacting populations.
鈥淔inance ministries have to support important government decisions on prioritisation of climate change action. We urge ministers to adopt a set of principles to develop realistic economic assessments of climate impacts and opportunities. Our contribution to the reports provided ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings are designed to draw attention to the limitations of first generation climate risk models which understate risks and provide some very specific recommendations to better assess the economic impact of climate change.鈥�
Kartina Tahir Thomson, IFoA President, said: 鈥淐limate change is a risk management issue on a global scale. If we want to avoid severe disruption to the economy and our global society, we need to take action to reduce emissions, limit warming, mitigate the extent of future climate risks and adapt to those we cannot avoid.
鈥淚t is great to see this IFoA research being delivered direct to policymakers in over 90 countries. Given their skills and expertise in assessing long-term risk, actuaries are well placed to help draw attention to these climate risk challenges and to offer solutions.鈥�
The report was included in the Coalition of Finance Ministers鈥� for Climate Action鈥檚 Helsinki Principle 4 initiative 鈥樷��. The was part of its newly published Compendium of Practice.