The Adaptation Conversation

In this Acclimatise Conversation on Climate Change Adaptation, we speak with Clyde & Co lawyers Wynne Lawrence and Nigel Brook, about the emerging field of climate liability risk and the pioneering work that the firm is doing to advise its clients about how to respond. In September 2015 the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, gave his seminal 'Tragedy of the Horizon's' speech, to the insurance market at Lloyd's of London. In it, he highlighted the severe threats posed by climate change to the financial system and warned the problem risked being ignored because of institutional near-sightedness. "The classic problem in environmental economics is the 'tragedy of the commons'... but climate change is a tragedy of the horizon," Carney said, "We don't need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors. It will impose costs on future generations that the current one has little direct incentive to fix." The hor