In June 2023, the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) convened high-level global experts from governments, international organizations, civil society and academia at the IDF Summit in Zurich to chart the path towards delivering greater financial climate resilience and inclusivity. As climate change continues to intensify, the Summit's theme of “Ambition, Action & Impact” captured the urgency with which global actors must move to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals – especially those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The Summit focused on how partnerships among public, academic, development and private sectors can catalyze efficiency and scale in implementing climate resilience initiatives. Three key IDF initiatives were shared in this respect – all of which have the potential to contribute to the attainment of sustainable and long-term impact for those most vulnerable to climate-related risks. These initiatives include the Tripartite Agreement projects,  the Global Risk Modelling Alliance (GRMA) and the Global Resilience Index Initiative (GRII). 

A key highlight of the Summit was the signing of a new agreement to advance the GRII and to establish a Global Resilience Hub that will support the case for investing upfront in resilience for governments, financial institutions and investors.  The parties to the GRII agreement are the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), IDF, the University of Oxford, and the GEM (Global Earthquake Model) Foundation.

Investing in measures that can reduce, or even prevent, climate risks escalating into disasters is crucial. A notable dimension of the GRII will therefore be the generation of models, metrics and analysis that will support mobilization of finance for adaptation to climate change. Due to be launched at COP28 in Dubai, the GRII will provide open access data to support solutions to some of the biggest challenges that will be highlighted at COP28, including climate adaptation, investment, and loss and damage implementation.

“As we head to COP28 it is clear that insurance and related risk management tools are key pieces of the global climate resilience puzzle,” Ekhosuehi Iyahen, Secretary General, IDF said. “On its own, insurance is not the antidote to the threat that climate change poses, nor does it provide total safety from its impacts; but combined as part of proactive ex-ante disaster risk financing measures (that span public, private and development sectors), insurance is increasingly accepted as a powerful resilience tool.” 

To move the climate resilience agenda forward, delegates at the IDF Summit 2023 called for a global target for increasing resilience, redesigned methods to measure the value of resilience initiatives and investments, and for enhanced investments in sustainable and resilient infrastructure. The IDF is committed to catalyzing action and ambition for impact on these calls to action.

“For COP28, the IDF and its partners are engaging across sectors to seek convergence on the climate adaptation and resilience agenda, to develop collective responsibility and ownership by partners, members and countries, with an emphasis on the need to work better, to work together, and to deliver real impacts at scale,” Iyahen concluded.