Climate Risk Product Research Intern

Role Description

You will help build the climate risk parameter library that underpins the physical and transition risk models in its climate risk solution. You will turn climate science, regulation and sector knowledge into a structured, sourced and versioned set of parameters that the models can run on.

What is the Parameter Library?

The parameter library is the set of hazards, drivers, scenarios, sector and asset factors, thresholds and reference values that our models use to calculate climate risk. Its quality decides how credible, comparable and traceable every result is. The library must give global coverage of assets and sectors, and serve multiple client streams and use cases from a single, consistent base.

In this role, you will help build and extend two libraries.

• Physical risk parameter library

• The physical risk library needs to cover the key modelling areas below, for assets and sectors worldwide:
• Acute and chronic climate hazards, with definitions, metrics, units and return periods
• Climate scenarios and time horizons
• Asset and location exposure across asset types and sectors
• Vulnerability and damage functions that link hazard intensity to asset and business impact
• Adaptation and resilience factors that reduce risk
• Translation of physical impacts into financial impact

• Transition risk parameter library

• The transition risk library needs to cover the key modelling areas below, across global sectors and jurisdictions:
• Policy, legal, technology, market and reputation drivers
• Transition scenarios and pathways, including carbon and energy price assumptions
• Sector and asset sensitivity to the low-carbon transition
• Company-level indicators such as emissions intensity, targets and energy mix
• Proxies where company-level data is limited
• Translation of transition impacts into financial impact
• You will research, define, source and structure parameters in these areas, working closely with the Head of Climate Risk Research, who guides priorities and reviews every release of the library.

Key Responsibilities

• Research and evaluate data sources and scientific literature, regulations and frameworks relevant to physical and transition climate risk.
• Pull, clean and structure datasets from those sources, and prepare them so they can be used as inputs in the physical and transition risk models.
• Build and maintain parameters for the physical and transition risk libraries, in line with the modelling areas above.
• Document each parameter with a clear definition, unit, source, date and citation.
• Check coverage across geographies, asset types and sectors, and flag gaps and proxy options.
• Work with research, product and engineering colleagues so parameters can be used directly in the models.
• Support quality review, versioning and documentation of the library.
• Present findings and recommendations to the Head of Climate Risk Research and the wider team.

Requirements

Hands-on experience working with datasets: cleaning, joining, checking and documenting tabular data, and ideally geospatial or time-series data, in Excel or Google Sheets (Python or SQL is a plus).

Ability to research and identify data sources, such as scientific and public databases, agency portals, company disclosures and published reports, and to judge their coverage, resolution, date, licensing and credibility.

Ability to pull data from these sources (downloads, APIs or tables in reports) and prepare it in consistent, well-documented structures.

Ability to apply datasets to physical and transition risk modelling: understanding how a dataset becomes a model input, choosing suitable proxies where data is limited, and flagging the limits of what a dataset can support.

Academic background in a climate-related field, such as climate science, atmospheric or earth sciences, hydrology, environmental science, geography, energy, emissions accounting, sustainability, or climate economics and policy, shown through a degree, coursework, a thesis or research projects.

Working knowledge of climate and emissions concepts: greenhouse gas emissions and inventories, emissions scopes, emissions intensity, climate scenarios and pathways, and acute versus chronic hazards.

Ability to use this background to analyse physical and transition risk, for example judging which hazards or transition drivers matter for which assets and sectors.

Depth in at least one of physical risk or transition risk.

Preferred background in

• Familiarity with frameworks such as TCFD, ISSB (IFRS S2), NGFS scenarios and PCAF.
• Exposure to GIS or geospatial data, or to climate datasets (NetCDF, rasters).
• Python or SQL for cleaning, joining and checking larger datasets.
• Understanding of credit and financial risk concepts, such as probability of default, collateral valuation and sector exposure.