Weather derivatives: general overview, legal, tax, and application issues

Weather derivatives are exchange traded (ETD) or over-the-counter (OTC) call to option or swap contracts that are triggered in the specified weather event. Nowadays, acute weather events lead to increasing popularity of such risk hedging instruments. In this article the author presents a brief overview of the nature of weather derivatives, their applicability in various industries, available information on traded volumes, legal framework, taxation, pricing and basis risk, impact on financial resilience of investors. Comparing to the US market, weather derivatives are still not so commonly used in the EU. On the other hand, the obligatory implementation of new EU corporate sustainability standards and the underling TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) methodology will definitely increase weather risk awareness at least among large and public listed companies. Therefore, the growth of the demand for weather risk transfer tools is expected. In conclusion, next steps should be taken towards the improvement of the functioning of weather derivatives markets in response to the continuing trend of climate change.