Abstract/Summary

This Summary, based on the IPCC Working Group I Sixth Assessment Report released in August 2021, is tailored to the actuarial community to provide helpful insights into what the IPCC report means for the Actuarial profession. The IPCC Working Group I report addresses the most up-to-date physical understanding of the climate system and climate change. It brings together the latest advances in climate science, combining multiple lines of evidence from paleoclimate, observations, process understanding, and global and regional climate simulations to get the clearest picture of past, present, and possible future climate. Actuaries, as risk professionals, need to understand the physical impacts of climate systems and climate changes. Such impacts will affect how risks are underwritten, priced, managed, and reported, whether for general, life or health insurance, pensions, other financial institutions, or social security. It is important for actuaries to understand the magnitude of the potential changes, the uncertainty of their frequency and intensity, and the inherent volatility of such risks. Each of the physical changes analyzed in the latest IPCC Working Group I report could have an impact on human well-being and the long-term sustainability of the environment. Within these changes, actuaries are particularly interested in the effect of climate change on floods, droughts, fires, storms, rise of sea level, air pollution and the long-term effects of climate change. The Summary focuses on the physical changes affecting the most common perils analysed by actuaries and is supplemented with two Annexes on data and regional specificities and a glossary to support its users.