Making Matters Worse: How Government Disaster Insurance Hampers Efforts to Address Climate Change and Endangers the Public

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The primary purpose of government is to provide security for its citizens. Unfortunately, government disaster insurance, as currently structured in many countries, provides the wrong incentives to citizens and increases the risks of injuries and loss of property, especially from climate-related impacts. Mandates that all people residing in high-risk areas purchase their own insurance, while providing assistance for people to relocate away from dangerous areas who cannot afford it, would greatly reduce these risks, and thus the future costs of climate-related injuries. In addition, by making the costs of climate change salient to citizens such a change in policy would help to create the needed political momentum to enact more sweeping reforms aimed at mitigating climate change.

Stream: Technical, Political and Social Responses

Paper: Making Matters Worse

Jason Scorse joined the Monterey Institute faculty as a full-time professor in the Graduate School of International Policy Studies in the fall of 2005, after first serving as an adjunct professor. He completed his PhD from UC-Berkeley in May of 2005. He teaches mostly economics courses, including International Economics, Environmental & Natural Resource Economics, and the Economics of Sustainable Development. In addition to economics, he is interested in philosophy, ethics, and the pursuit of universal human rights.