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Our Story

Pursuing the re-alignment of
economy within sustainability
in a climate-changed world

CliMobilize is a Canadian-registered non-profit:

Registration number 1519488-1

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Established by Brad Zarnett and Ian Kaplan, Climobilize aims to unite people to take focused action to protect the planet's ability to sustainably provide for future generations.

Image by Pat Whelen

CliMobilize engages in ventures guided by 4 criteria:

Meaningful

Impactful

Transparent

Scaleable

CliMobilize & The Scorpion's Tail Club

1. The Name

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CliMobilize's flagship project is The Scorpion's Tail Club. This name was chosen both in homage to the valuable insights presented in the Climate Scorpion report, and because it so aptly references the scorpion-and-the-frog-type situation facing the 4 "targeted" financial sector segments - insurance, banks, investors and pensions.

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2. The 4 sectors stinging themselves into insolvency

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The insurance, banks, investment and pension sectors provide the vital resources needed for the economy to operate. But in pursuit of their business goals, they [inadvertently] also fuel the economic activity destroying the very foundations on which all of humanity depends. Like the scorpion in the parable about the scorpion and the frog, it is in the scorpion's nature to sting that which it depends upon, bringing on its own demise. We aim to achieve a different outcome with these 4 financial segments upon whom the entire economy depends, for the good of the climate, humanity AND the economy.

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3. The sting in the tail that no-one's talking about

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The tail in the "scorpion's tail" refers to the extreme risks - called tail risks - in the probability curve, as reflected in the diagram below from the "Climate Scorpion" document. Tail risk is described by the authors as follows:

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"Tail risk refers to the risk of unlikely events occurring, typically in the ‘tails’ of a probability distribution. Such events can be rare but can have significant impacts on financial markets, investments or other systems. Actuaries often pay attention to tail risk as it involves the potential for large losses, which are of particular interest for risk management."​

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As climate change accelerates, these tail risks are projected to become so impactful that concerns over the financial and planetary solvency of our economic system cannot be dismissed as exaggeration or hysteria. The consequences of ignoring this are simply too great.

 

The mainstream already talks about how climate change has caused a loss to GDP, with 1 degree of warming reducing GDP by 12% (source), and warming projections of 2 or 3 degrees projected to result in over 50% loss to GDP (source). Most of us don't play Russian Roulette because, even with "just" 1 of 6 chambers holding a bullet, we don't like the 16% odds of hurting ourselves. BUT the planet’s risks of surpassing 2 degrees are already over 50%. That’s like putting 2 more bullets in the chamber. This is not a chance that we want to take with the world’s economic system, and certainly not with the environmental systems upon which our lives depend. Indeed, these levels of warming will cause such significant collapse of environmental systems that the global economy will collapse as well. The result: planetary insolvency. Yet these kinds of events in the tail of the probability curve are not being widely recognized even as their probability of occurring increases with continued warming. There has been neither sufficient discussion nor action taken to eliminate the risk of this planetary insolvency.

4. The pain in the sting

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In the chart below, the blue curve represents our reality in the past. The solid blue area represents extreme, costly events that occurred very rarely back then.  But today we are in the gold curve, and the extreme events in the solid blue area which were formerly very rare are now in the center of this gold curve. That means the probability and frequency of such damaging events happening today is now much higher,  occurring every year or two. The costs are already being felt, with GDP decreasing accordingly. But at the same time, the solid gold area now reflects even more extreme and costly events that, as warming continues, will become the new norm. However, these tail risk events in the solid gold area are SO extreme and costly that the damage to GDP is massive, undermining economic activity to such a degree that they could lead to planetary insolvency. With climate change accelerating at an unprecedented rate, we can expect these new 1 in a 100 year events to quickly move into the center of the gold curve - our current reality - devastating our entire economic system and putting planetary solvency itself at risk.

Tail Risk.jpg

5. Removing the sting

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We believe that risk analyses and the insights of actuaries in these segments have a critical role to play. They serve as the early-warning system to the management in their respective companies about the impending catastrophe facing their own companies and segments, as well as to the recipients of their capital and insurance coverage under the the current corporate regulatory frameworks and financial institutional frameworks. They help reveal how continuing to act like the scorpion that succumbs to its nature can have only one outcome.

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​THE BOTTOM LINE:

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The Scorpion's Tail Club brings together senior decision makers in the 4 financial sectors to discuss, strategize and take action to facilitate a transition to sustainable profits in order to minimize the tail risks of climate change before they result in planetary insolvency.

WANT TO JOIN US?

Join us in our mission to save the planet! We have a monumental task ahead of us, but failure is not an option. Hundreds of people with diverse skills have already signed up to help, and we believe that everyone has a role to play.

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