The visit was prompted by discussions with CEO Dave Burt of investment research firm DeltaTerra Capital, who was one of the first to recognize the instability in the US housing market that led to its crash and the subsequent 2007-2008 global financial crisis. According to Burt, the housing market is once again overlooking a systemic issue that could have repercussions on a global scale; this time it’s flood risk.
Flooding is recognized as the most common natural disaster in the US. Learn more about how this risk is not equitable.
CNBC International Correspondent Sam Meredith joined our Chairman Prof Paul Bates in Bristol Harbour to learn more about flood risk in the UK.
“Most people when they think about flooding and the climate crisis think that things will get an awful lot worse in the future. But it overlooks the fact that flooding is not well managed now… The better we manage emissions, the greater the percentage of risk that’s already with us now.”
Prof Paul Bates, Chairman at Fathom
During their discussion, Paul and Sam also talked about the increasing trend of properties being built in areas identified as vulnerable to flooding. To learn more about this topic, check out the research led by Kostas Andreadis on ‘Urbanizing the floodplain: global changes to imperviousness in flood-prone areas’, which finds that floodplain urbanization has almost doubled since 1985.
Sam then popped into Fathom’s HQ – also in Bristol – to speak with our Chief Research Officer Dr Oliver Wing about how flood risk is likely to evolve in the future depending on different emissions scenarios. In particular, they discussed two of the key findings from the recent paper ‘A climate-conditioned catastrophe risk model for UK flooding’ by Paul D Bates et al., published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Science.
The national picture masks regional variance
Flood risk across the UK is not uniform. Some regions will see an increase of expected annual flood damage under climate change of more than 25%, while other areas may actually experience a decrease.
“The national picture really masks regional differences. There’s winners and losers when it comes to flooding in the UK under climate change.”
Dr Oliver Wing, Chief Research Officer at Fathom
The financial cost of doing nothing is enormous
If COP26 and net zero carbon emissions pledges are missed, the annual cost of flooding in the UK over the next century could grow by up to 23% above recent historic levels.
“We hear a lot, right, about what the cost of climate action might be, how expensive an energy transition might be. Well here is the alternative. The cost of doing nothing and it’s massive.”
Watch the video for the whole interview.
