How do we make climate goals a reality in 2016?

The author, CEO of Swiss Re, asserts that while the COP21 agreement is a critical milestone, achieving its goals requires concrete action and the integration of insurance to price risks and close protection gaps. He advocates for a pre-emptive risk management approach to attract investment for resilient infrastructure and suggests that public-private partnerships can help narrow the widening gap between economic and insured catastrophe damages. The document highlights the COP21 provision for a "clearing house for risk transfer" as a key opportunity to enhance risk management strategies.

• The COP21 agreement in Paris brought together 195 countries with the objective of limiting carbon emissions to 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspirational target of 1.5C, to protect coastal areas and island nations from ice melt.
• Insurance and reinsurance serve as tools to quantify the cost of inaction by putting a price tag on risks, which can encourage governments to adopt pre-emptive risk management and attract investment for resilient infrastructure.
• There is a widening gap between economic and insured damages from natural catastrophes, driven by socioeconomic development and exacerbated by climate change; this gap may be narrowed through initiatives such as InsuResilience, the Climate Insurance Fund, 100 Resilient Cities, and risk pooling mechanisms like ARC and CCRIF.
• The COP21 Paris agreement specifically includes provisions to create a "clearing house for risk transfer," which the author views as a way to facilitate comprehensive risk management and innovative public-private partnerships.

APA

Liès, M. M. (2016). How do we make climate goals a reality in 2016? World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/cop21-a-momentous-global-agreement-but-how-do-we-prevent-it-from-being-too-little-too-late/

Chicago

Liès, Michel M. How do we make climate goals a reality in 2016? World Economic Forum, 2016. https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/cop21-a-momentous-global-agreement-but-how-do-we-prevent-it-from-being-too-little-too-late/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Liès |first1=Michel M. |title=How do we make climate goals a reality in 2016? |publisher=World Economic Forum |date=23 January 2016 |url=https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/cop21-a-momentous-global-agreement-but-how-do-we-prevent-it-from-being-too-little-too-late/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{lis2016how, author = {Liès, Michel M.}, title = {{How do we make climate goals a reality in 2016?}}, publisher = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2016}, month = jan, url = {https://www.weforum.org/stories/climate-action/cop21-a-momentous-global-agreement-but-how-do-we-prevent-it-from-being-too-little-too-late/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }