Clark’s Climate Work Earns Nobel Recognition

Boston — Karen Clark, president and CEO of Karen Clark & Co., has been honored with an award certificate for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which received the global award.

According to the accompanying letter from R. K. Pachauri, IPCC Chairman, “We are providing a copy of this award only to those who have contributed substantially to the work of the IPCC over the years since the inception of the organization.”

Clark is best known for developing the first hurricane catastrophe model and, in 1987, founded the first catastrophe modeling company, Applied Insurance Research (AIR), which subsequently became AIR Worldwide Corp., after acquisition by Insurance Services office in 2002. She has devoted more than 20 years to working closely with meteorologists, seismologists, engineers and other experts to develop scientifically advanced catastrophe models, and has developed processes to benchmark catastrophe models for all types of natural hazards in 50 countries. Clark also led the development of software applications that are used globally by insurers and others as standard tools for catastrophe risk assessment and management. She formed Karen Clark & Co., Boston, to help client companies derive full value from the risk assessment tools.

Clark first contributed to the work of the IPCC as a co-lead author for the Second Assessment Report published in 1995. Since that time, she has sponsored and supported scientific research on climate change and its potential impacts with respect to severe weather events.

“It’s a great honor to be associated with the IPCC, the 2007 co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and to be recognized as a valuable contributor to such an important body of scientific work,” said Clark. “Climate change is clearly one of the most critical issues of our time, and an area of vital ongoing scientific investigation.”

On December 10, 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Source: Karen Clark & Co.