Alfred Gourdji Distinguished Lecture Series: The Increasing Costs of Natural Disasters Fueled by Climate Change: Who Pays?

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires, droughts and flood events, and slower-moving disasters like sea level rise and land subsidence. Adapting to ongoing climate change is a costly endeavor. Some of these costs involve immediate disaster response, but longer-term investments are also needed to climate-proof homes and infrastructure like roads, bridges, water and waste systems and electricity and natural gas networks. These costs will be shared by federal, state, and local governments, but also the private sector, including our health systems and financial institutions, and the public at large. This lecture will discuss the extent of these costs in the U.S. and the longer-term battle to distribute them in a proactive, equitable and cost-effective way.

Dr. Sharon M. Gourdji is an environmental scientist with a background in economics, and expertise in climate change, agriculture, and natural disaster modeling. She was awarded a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth System Science Fellowship during her Ph.D. studies at the University of Michigan. She has since led the Climate and Crop Modeling Group of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia, and was previously an environmental engineer for the National Institute of Standards & Technology. She is currently Associate Director, Modeling & Analytics, of Moody’s Corporation.