Gareth Johnston, Director, Climate Risk Pty Ltd , will represent CR at this year’s leading climate risk conference in Helsinki July 17-21. Organized by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and co-hosted by Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) and International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) the conference brings together world leading experts including Jeffrey Sachs, Director, The Earth Institute at Columbia University  and Rajendra Pachauri Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  A key goal of the conference is to develop a better understanding of decision making processes in real-world contexts, including agriculture, water resource management, disease control, power generation/transmission and disaster mitigation, where climate is one of the factors to be considered.

The conference will review opportunities and constraints in integrating climate risks and uncertainties into the mainstreams of decision-making where sensitivity to climate variability and change is but one among many factors to consider. It will draw on the experiences of public and private organizations worldwide that have been engaged in managing risks including those of a climatic origin.

The focus of the conference, therefore, is on decision-processes in real-world contexts, including agriculture, water resource management, disease control, power generation and disaster mitigation, where climate is one of the factors to be considered. Sessions will focus on generalized decision-processes, including principles of risk assessment and management within broader institutional and policy frameworks. These discussions will place into context previous efforts at incorporating knowledge including climate information into decision-making, with the presentation of both experimental and operational examples.

The goal of the conference is to make substantial progress in the establishment of an operable agenda for climate related risk management, and to propose an enduring process for future work.

The conference will feature state-of-the-art research on complex decision-making theory and practice in sectors directly or indirectly sensitive to climate variability and change. For this purpose, the conference will embrace the physical, natural, and social disciplines; it will thus provide an excellent opportunity for professionals in business, science and the public sector to interact on a broad range of topics of mutual concern. The conference also will contribute to the ongoing effort to achieve the international development goals established under the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration.

Conference participants will be drawn from many disciplines in both the private and public sectors, including mathematics, psychology, climate, agriculture, health, hydrology, sociology, governance, development, energy and environment.