Climate Physical Risk

A report by 80 scientists convened by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative and the UN Environment Programme, led by glaciologist James Kirkham, finds that even a temporary overshoot of 1.5C does largely permanent damage to glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice and permafrost, and calls the idea that 2C or 3C is manageable a myth. Under current policies, glacier mass falls below 10% of today's in the Rockies, Alps, Iceland and Scandinavia, against 20 to 35% at 1.5C, and the Hindu Kush Himalaya, which supplies water to nearly a quarter of humanity, keeps 41% of its ice against 83%. Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice about six times faster than in the 1990s, and the authors put a safe long-term limit for the ice sheets near 1.0C, which means bringing warming back down from today's 1.3C. The Guardian reports it as leaders gather for COP31.

Aon's Impact Forecasting estimates that windstorms Austen and Boelo, which crossed Western Europe between 22 and 25 October and opened the 2026–27 season, will cause economic and insured losses in the hundreds of millions of euros, with France expected to bear the largest share, ahead of the UK and Germany. Austen gusted to 111 mph at Padstow in Cornwall and cut power to almost 300,000 French homes at its peak; Boelo's rain fell on ground Austen had saturated, and storm surge flooded town centres such as Largs on Scotland's west coast. The two storms were linked to at least four deaths.

Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Companies is back in the catastrophe bond market for its second deal, Fish Pond Re 2026-1, seeking $250 million of Texas named-storm reinsurance on an indemnity, per-occurrence basis for four years to the end of 2030, Artemis reports. One $125 million tranche attaches at $325 million of losses with guidance of 3 to 3.5%, the other at $825 million with guidance of 2.25 to 2.75%; its 2023 debut attached at $1.25 billion and paid a 4% spread. Artemis attributes the lower multiples to a reinsurance market much softer than the hard market of late 2023.

Why it matters: The insurer is buying protection far lower in its loss tower at lower prices, a sign of how much cheaper hurricane capital has become.

Grist's Kate Yoder reports that 58% of likely voters, including 42% of Republicans, told a Grist and Data for Progress poll that climate change will hinder their ability to reach the American Dream over the next 20 years. The piece draws on First Street's projection that climate risk could cut nearly $1.5 trillion from U.S. home values by 2055 and on western North Carolina after Helene, where about 4% of more than 74,000 damaged homes carried flood insurance, leaving $9.5 billion of uninsured residential losses, and Asheville's average home price fell 5% in a year against a 1.2% national rise, per Zillow.