Pablo Suarez to Contribute to IPCC Special Report on Disasters

Pardee Center Research Fellow Dr. Pablo Suarez has been invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a contributing author for the IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change, which was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Award, is the leading body for the assessment of climate change, established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences.

This new IPCC report is expected to support negotiators and decision makers on risk management issues, and Dr. Suarez will be in charge of addressing microinsurance and other innovative financial instruments to improve community resilience. Pablo Suarez has published extensively on the potential role of microinsurance to enhance climate risk management, including an article just published in the journal Global Environmental Change building on his fieldwork in Ethiopia and Malawi, hosted a Pardee House Seminar on Food and Microinsurance in 2009, and recently published a Pardee Center Paper that addresses index-based insurance for humanitarian decisions.