Canadian Financial Watchdogs Silent on UK Actuaries Climate Risk Warnings
UK actuaries are sounding the alarm that climate risk is being severely underestimated, but Canadian financial watchdogs remain tight-lipped about whether they agree. The UK’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, along with the University of Exeter, released a report in January 2026 titled *Parasol Lost*, warning that without action, the planet is likely to warm 2 degrees Celsius before 2050. The report highlights a surprising factor: pollution from ships and factories has acted like a sunshade, masking about half a degree of warming. As regulations clean up this pollution, the masking effect is disappearing, accelerating climate change.
The report’s author, Sandy Trust, compared the situation to the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, where insufficient risk models failed to predict systemic risks. The findings have been shared widely, including with the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action. However, in Canada, observers accuse government financial institutions of ignoring these warnings, potentially underestimating the risk to Canadians' future financial security.
Last August, the pension advocacy group Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health criticized Canada’s chief actuary, Assia Billig, for underestimating climate risks in a January 2025 study. The study predicted Canada’s economy could shrink 30% by 2100 under a worst-case climate scenario, while a UK actuaries’ paper cited by Shift projected losses of 65-73% if the planet warms 4 degrees Celsius. Yrjö Koskinen, director of research at Queen's University's Institute for Sustainable Finance, noted that the Canadian figure was an illustration, not a prediction, but agreed that Shift’s core point held: knowing about climate risk is not the same as measuring and communicating its severity.
When asked whether the UK reports had changed their thinking, Canadian institutions refused to engage directly. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) said it would publish numbers on climate risk once reliable data and methods were available. The Canadian Institute of Actuaries declined to comment on the reports, while the Bank of Canada pointed to studies on climate action delays but avoided discussing the UK findings. Critics argue that without public responses, Canadians have no way of knowing if the warnings have made any difference.