Climate CoLab contest on absorbing climate impacts

The MIT Climate CoLab has a powerful platform to crowdsource solutions for different climate-related issues. More importantly, they’ve gathered really sharp people to participate in the colab, so there are always not only interesting projects to peruse, but also great feedback that have helped those projects sharpen their propositions. Today, I voted in the Climate CoLab on absorbing climate impacts. My vote went toward a solution focusing on climate-vulnerable populations in tourist economies. Last year’s hurricane season exposed just how vulnerable those people are. Catastrophe insurance works for large companies that can afford the premiums, but don’t really address disaster aid. This proposal is to develop a social protection index, specifically in the Bahamas but extensible to anywhere, to help provide pricing information for insurance underwriting that relief agencies and governments can use.