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) at Berkeley Law is now pleased to welcome him to our team, where he plans to expand on this groundbreaking work.

You can join us at CLEE in welcoming Dave Jones at a free webinar this Wednesday, March 27, at 10am to learn more about his work and perspective on climate change, insurance, and financial risks.

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 our September 2018 report Trial by Fire and a June 2018 symposium Insuring California in a Changing Climate. During our webinar this Wednesday, we 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 this 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.

I hope you can join Wednesday’s webinar to learn more about Jones’ new work on this important issue at CLEE, as well as what the insurance industry can do to address and incorporate climate risks going forward.