A methodological framework to operationalize climate risk management: managing sovereign climate-related extreme event risk in Austria

Thomas Schinko, Reinhard Mechler, Stefan Hochrainer-Stigler

Despite considerable uncertainties regarding the exact contribution of anthropogenic climate change to disaster risk, rising losses from extreme events have highlighted the need to comprehensively address climate-related risk. This requires linking climate adaptation to disaster risk management (DRM), leading to what has been broadly referred to as climate risk management (CRM). While this concept has received attention in debate, important gaps remain in terms of operationalizing it with applicable methods and tools for specific risks and decision-contexts. By developing and applying a methodological approach to CRM in the decision context of sovereign risk (flooding) in Austria we test the usefulness of CRM, and based on these insights, inform applications in other decision contexts. Our methodological approach builds on multiple lines of evidence and methods. These comprise of a broad stakeholder engagement process, empirical analysis of public budgets, and risk-focused economic modelling. We find that a CRM framework is able to inform instrumental as well as reflexive and participatory debate in practice. Due to the complex interaction of social-ecological systems with climate risks, and taking into account the likelihood of future contingent climate-related fiscal liabilities increasing substantially as a result of socioeconomic developments and climate change, we identify the need for advanced learning processes and iterative updates of CRM management plans. We suggest that strategies comprising a portfolio of policy measures to reduce and manage climate-related risks are particularly effective if they tailor individual instruments to the specific requirements of different risk layers.