Modernizing the Federal Budget: How Modeling Climate Risk Increases Resilience

Climate change is increasingly a budgetary pressure-point, showing up through disaster aid, infrastructure write-downs, and pressure on social insurance programs like unemployment insurance. Across the federal government, analysts are beginning to model this climate risk in frameworks that feed directly into federal budgeting and climate-fiscal risk assessments. Are these tools such as climate-adjusted stress tests for Social Security, unemployment insurance, and disaster programs able to reveal the real vulnerabilities in our federal budget?

Join the EconClimate Lab at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy for a seminar luncheon to discuss what it would mean to treat climate risk as a core budget input, rather than a peripheral consideration, and how that might change capital planning, automatic stabilizers, and resilience investments. This small group discussion will feature former administration officials and researchers with demonstrated interest in this policy sphere to identify challenges with existing models and opportunities for future work.