Former California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones Joins CLEE to Work on Financial Risk from Climate Change

Commissioner Dave Jones just concluded two successful terms leading the California Department of Insurance, where he distinguished himself as a pioneer in efforts to address the risks that climate change poses to the insurance sector. The Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE) is now pleased to welcome him to our team, where he plans to expand on this groundbreaking work. In addition to his position with CLEE, Jones has also been appointed a Distinguished Fellow with the ClimateWorks Foundation and the Senior Director for Environmental and Social Risk with The Nature Conservancy.

Please join CLEE in welcoming Dave Jones at two upcoming events:

• A free webinar this Wednesday, March 27, at 10am to learn more about his work and perspective on climate change, insurance, and financial risks.
• A lunch session in San Francisco on Wednesday, May 1, at 12:15pm to discuss the future of finance in a changing world.

At CLEE, Jones will launch a new initiative to develop smart public policy to help the insurance and other financial sectors better identify, evaluate, and address climate risk. He will also examine the role that the financial sector can play in aligning capital with the Paris Agreement and the role of financial regulators in addressing climate related risks.

Jones previously collaborated with CLEE while in office, including on the September 2018 report Trial by Fire and a June 2018 symposium Insuring California in a Changing Climate. During our webinar this Wednesday, CLEE will launch a new brief based on the symposium that summarizes the top analysis and recommendations from participants.

Jones will draw heavily from his pioneering efforts as Insurance Commissioner in his new initiative at CLEE. Under his leadership, the Department of Insurance launched the Climate Risk Carbon Initiative, a first-of-its-kind effort requiring major insurers to disclose their fossil fuel investments and requesting that they divest from thermal coal enterprises. Jones additionally spearheaded groundbreaking climate risk scenario analyses of insurers’ investment portfolios to assess the potential exposure to climate-related risks of trillions of dollars of insurer investments. Jones was also founding Chairperson of the Sustainable Insurance Forum, a working group of insurance regulators from across the globe developing best supervisory practices to address climate risk.

As the world increasingly looks to financial and insurance markets to help respond to the growing risks from climate change, we are grateful to Dave for his leadership developing incentives and pathways to help facilitate this transition. We look forward to his continued progress on this important issue here at CLEE.