In March of 2022 Luke Kemp et al published this paper entitled Climate Endgame: Exploring catastrophic climate change scenarios and in it they explored catastrophic risks associated with the evolving climate crisis.

They received some criticism that this was being alarmist. Far from it though as any actuary will tell you.

In their paper they made this recommendation:

The IPCC has yet to give focused attention to catastrophic climate change. Fourteen special reports have been published. None covered extreme or catastrophic climate change. A special report on “tipping points” was proposed for the seventh IPCC assessment cycle, and we suggest this could be broadened to consider all key aspects of catastrophic climate change.

Now two years latter the European Environmental Agency seemed to have heeded the call as the agency just released (March 11, 2024) a report entitled European Climate Risk Assessment in it they identify 36 major risks to the European Union shown in the graphic below.

They say about these risks:

In the absence of additional adaptation actions, almost all (34 out of 36) climate risks would reach critical or even catastrophic levels during this century in a high warming scenario.

They also say this:

It is standard practice in insurance and the wider financial industry to focus on low-probability, high-impact scenarios (so-called tail risks). In contrast, current adaptation policies in Europe and beyond largely centre on middle-of-the-road scenarios. Considering the considerable chance that climate change impacts are exceeding available model-based assessments, it is imperative that adaptation (and mitigation) policies designed by the EU and its Member States hedge against extreme scenarios.

It is thus essential that adaptation policies take a precautionary approach in considering the tail risks of climate change, and that policies are introduced which enhance resilience, including under extreme scenarios.

Many of these 36 risks apply to most regions of the world, so if your region hasn’t yet done the work to identify what is coming, then learn from this analysis.

This is without question the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced and to a large extent we are completely unprepared.