New Disaster Resilience VC Fund, SEC Moves to Scrap Climate Disclosure Rule, Catastrophe Model Tie-up & More

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Venture capital firm Convective Capital has closed an US$85mn second fund to back disaster resilience start-ups supporting the protection of companies exposed to climate physical risks.

Convective’s first US$35mn fund, closed in 2022, focused on wildfire risk mitigation tech plays — including Burnbot, Pano AI, and Seneca — as well as innovative insurance carriers Stand and Delos. 

With its latest raise, Convective plans to back entities addressing risks to supply chains, manufacturing, forestry, building design and grid resilience. Early investments include those in Drafted, an AI-powered home design company; Edge Technologies, an insurtech focused on commodity markets; The Lumber Manufactory, a timber mill disruptor; and Voltair, a drone inspection data start-up.

Overall, Fund II will back around 18 companies across pre-seed to Series A, writing larger checks than its predecessor. Limited partners include the Arbor Day Foundation, StepStone Group, two insurance carriers and a pension fund.

Florida’s ‘Resilient Florida’ program — which has distributed US$1.8bn in flood adaptation funding since its 2021 launch — survived a push by state legislatures for deep cuts after a body of prominent business leaders lobbied on its behalf. The Florida Council of 100 urged lawmakers to expand, rather than contract, the program to some US$500mn annually. The legislature had proposed cutting the program to just US$50mn for the fiscal year beginning July 1. The Council argued that coastal property worth up to US$1.75trn faces flood exposure over the next 50 years, and needs protecting out of state funds. (E&E News)

The Bezos Earth Fund appears off-target to spend US$10bn on climate programs by its 2030 deadline, analysis by Bloomberg shows. With four years to go, the fund has deployed roughly US$2.3bn — implying a required spend rate of approximately US$1.4bn annually to hits its goal, well above the fund’s historical pace. Fund officials maintain the 2030 target remains in place, but the trajectory raises questions about whether large private climate pledges can substitute for the public finance gaps they are increasingly being asked to fill. (Bloomberg)

US residential property nationwide is exposed to US$375bn of uninsured flood losses under a 1-in-100-year flood scenario, according to a new Moody’s analysis conducted using its RMS Inland Flood HD model. Under a more extreme 1-in-500-year scenario, that figure triples to over US$1trn, with the protection gap — the difference between insured and uninsured losses — widening above 70%. This exposure represents a major credit risk to US state and local governments, which could struggle with higher property insurance costs, falling home values, and the need to invest more in climate-resilient infrastructure. Fewer than 2% of counties account for 65% of aggregate exposure, concentrated in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas — though Moody’s warns that even modest uninsured losses can strain fiscally weaker counties without adequate reserves or relief access. (Moody’s)

Extreme heat will cost major economies trillions of dollars this decade, according to an Allianz Research report published last Wednesday. Under a scenario in which each country replays its five hottest years from 2014–2024 in ascending order through 2030, cumulative GDP losses reach US$354bn for Japan, US$240bn for France, US$147bn for Italy, US$131bn for Germany and US$120bn for Spain. The relationship between heat and economic losses is non-linear: above 30°C, each additional degree strips roughly US$1.30 from output per worker-hour, while investment declines outpace consumption losses, since lower returns on capital discourage new spending and reduce future productive capacity. (Allianz Research)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) formally proposed rescinding Biden-era climate disclosure rules which would have required companies to publicly report their climate-related risks, severe weather financial impacts, and in some cases their greenhouse gas emissions.

The proposal, issued last Friday, justified the rescission on two grounds: that the rules exceed the SEC’s statutory authority, and that they impose unjustified costs on companies and shareholders. While the rules were finalized in 2024, they were immediately challenged in the courts by business interest groups and Republican state attorneys, and have yet to go into effect.

Chair Paul Atkins framed the rollback as part of a broader push to make investor materiality the central principle of securities regulation: “SEC disclosure obligations should comply with the Commission’s statutory authority, be guided by materiality as the North Star, avoid the practical effect of dictating corporate behavior, and be imposed only when the expected benefits justify the likely costs and burdens,” he argued in a prepared statement.

Environmental groups pushed back hard, arguing the rules gave investors consistent, financially material information on climate exposure. “These rules were put in place to support American investors, but this will leave them in the dark,” said Steven Rothstein, Chief Program Officer at sustainability non-profit Ceres. “These physical risks are real, growing, financial, and material for businesses and economies — and that’s why there has been urgency from investors and other stakeholders to adopt and protect these rules that improve corporate disclosures. We urge the SEC to reconsider this proposal as the cost of inaction on these risks far outweighs the cost of action,” he added.

Stephanie Jones, Senior Attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, said her organization would “vigorously oppose” the rescission, citing risks to retirement savings. “Climate change is causing stronger, more frequent — and more expensive — weather disasters. That’s putting Americans’ money at risk along with their health and safety,” she said.

The path to fully eliminating the rule remains long. A 60-day comment period opens the process, with legal challenges likely to follow.

The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID is threatening the closure of EM-DAT, the world’s most comprehensive disaster events database, which has powered three decades of catastrophe research, government policymaking, and humanitarian response. The database relied on the US development agency for 90% of its funding, resources that were zeroed out when it was eliminated early in the president’s second term. An open letter signed by more than 4,000 scientists and other stakeholders is calling on governments and development banks to rescue the database before it runs out of funding. (Carbon Brief)

Puerto Rico Governor Jennifer González-Colón declared a coastal erosion emergency last Wednesday, signing an executive order directing state agencies to immediately implement mitigation projects along the island’s northern coast. The order cites accelerating erosion driven by rising sea levels, storm surges, and other extreme natural forces. as representing a “direct threat” to the island’s people and infrastructure. Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, budget office and fiscal agency must now coordinate on funding and operational response. (The Hill)

The European Commission launched a formal call for evidence for an EU-wide action plan to digitalize water management — the purpose of which is to improve water efficiency and water infrastructure while ensuring clean, affordable water for all. The plan supports deployment of IoT sensors across water infrastructure and a proposed EU smart meter mandate “to enable more agile water management.” Responses to the consultation are welcome through June 24. (European Commission)

The UK’s Conservative party has pledged to scrap regulations requiring developers to prioritize passive cooling measures before installing air conditioning in new homes, framing the policy as a response to worsening summer heat. Current building rules, introduced in 2021 by the then-Conservative government and maintained by the Labour party, treat air conditioning as an undesirable solution due to energy use. (The Times)

The UK House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee has declared drought “an ever-present threat” and urged the government to “act now” to secure water resources for England’s future. In a new report, the committee called for a national emergency drought prioritization plan to be established by the fall of this year, an increase in water infrastructure investment, rainwater harvesting reform, and reservoir storage. (House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee)

Civil society submissions to country negotiators ahead of UN climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany later this month are urging stronger financing commitments for the Baku Adaptation Roadmap (BAR) — the mechanism launched at COP29 to operationalize the Global Goal on Adaptation through 2028. NGO group The Climate Action Network also wants to see binding guidance on adaptation indicator methodologies under the UAE-Belém framework. The submissions come as parties prepare to negotiate BAR governance structure, timeline, and alignment with the broader UNFCCC architecture. (Climate Action Network)

Pakistan called on India last Tuesday to uphold the Indus Waters Treaty, warning that any suspension would set a dangerous precedent for downstream nations. The 1960 World Bank-brokered agreement governs water sharing across the Indus basin, a lifeline for 300 million people facing intensifying climate-driven water stress. India placed the treaty into abeyance in April last year following a deadly militant attack in Kashmir it attributed to Pakistan. (The Economic Times)

KatRisk has agreed to join Verisk’s Model Exchange platform, adding its forward-looking catastrophe models covering inland flood, storm surge, tropical cyclone wind, severe convective storm, wildfire, and earthquake to an ecosystem that already hosts more than 400 peril models from over 20 third-party providers. 

The move expands the model vendor’s geographic and peril coverage at a moment when insurers face mounting pressure from climate-driven losses and heightened regulatory demands for robust risk assessments.

Verisk acquired Model Exchange — formerly Nasdaq Risk Modelling for Catastrophes — in 2025 to build an open platform where models created by different companies could be run on a standardized financial engine, enabling users to generate side-by-side risk comparisons without having to onboard multiple proprietary systems. KatRisk’s models incorporate climate variability and forward-looking hazard behavior, offering additional perspectives for territories where existing coverage is thin.

Separately, Verisk has also updated its tropical cyclone model for the US to reflect near-present climate conditions. The souped-up tech is designed to better capture how hurricanes behave today and how that translates into losses.

French hydrological start-up vorteX-io has raised €8.5mn (US$9.9mn) to expand its real-time flood and drought risk warning capabilities. The company maintains a wide-ranging river monitoring system, providing governments, public agencies, and other water managers with continuously updated information on the state of their water resources. VorteX-io has nearly 1,000 stations deployed across Europe, South America, Africa and Oceania. The Series A was supported by two new strategic investors — Seventure Partners and Daphni — with Banque des Territoires renewing its participation. (vorteX-io)

South Korea’s K-water, the state water authority, has signed a formal partnership with OpenAI to jointly develop a large language model tailored to water management technologies and disaster resilience. The collaboration pairs K-water’s operational data an AI-powered purification infrastructure with OpenAI’s modeling capabilities. The partnership is framed as a response to increasing climate-driven flood and drought frequency stressing water infrastructure across Asia. (Korea Times)

Somalia is launching a nationwide multi-hazard early warning system backed by US$12.7mn from the Green Climate Fund. The program, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), aims to reduce disaster-related fatalities 42% by 2030 through an integrated system of mobile alerts, sirens, and community communication networks across a country where recurrent droughts and floods regularly devastate livelihoods. The initiative is expected to directly reach 1.2 million people and indirectly benefit eight million. Somalia is one of seven countries in the UN Secretary-General’s global push to ensure universal early warning coverage by 2027. (UNDP)

Precipitation extremes in 2025 (Nature Reviews Earth & Environment)

Wildfires in 2025 (Nature Reviews Earth & Environment)

Two decades of urban heat intensification and exposure across 1400 cities (Communications Earth & Environment)

Rising global hail damage potential in a warming world (Nature)

Incorporating air quality health impacts into the social cost of carbon (Nature Climate Change)

Anthropogenic climate change accelerates the onset of global flood timing (Nature Communications)

Warming and vegetation greening drive recent surge in flash droughts (Science Advances)

Association of climate change with the spread of antimicrobial resistance genes in Salmonella: a longitudinal ecological and modelling study (The Lancet Planetary Health)

Future water constraints on United States lithium mining under climate change (Communications Earth & Environment)

Winter wheat yield sensitivity to snow drought is increasing across the Northern Hemisphere (Communications Earth & Environment)

Thanks for reading!

Louie Woodall
Editor