19 November 2017, Carbon Brief, COP23: Key outcomes agreed at the UN climate talks in Bonn. Climate change was again placed at the centre of global diplomacy over the past two weeks as diplomats and ministers gathered in Bonn, Germany, for the latest annual round of United Nations climate talks. COP23, the second “conference of the parties” since the Paris Agreement was struck in 2015, promised to be a somewhat technical affair as countries continued to negotiate the finer details of how the agreement will work from 2020 onwards. However, it was also the first set of negotiations since the US, under the presidency of Donald Trump, announced its intention earlier this year to withdraw from the Paris deal. And it was the first COP to be hosted by a small-island developing state with Fiji taking up the presidency, even though it was being held in Bonn. Carbon Brief covers all the summit’s key outcomes and talking points.Read More here
Yearly Archives: 2017
15 November 2017, Unfriend Coal, Our new scorecard was released today, finding that most insurers are still failing to take action on coal to prevent dangerous climate change. Leading insurance companies have pulled $20 billion out of investments in coal and a growing number are refusing to underwrite new coal projects, reveals a new scorecard on the industry from the Unfriend Coal campaign. Zurich announced this week that it will divest from and cease offering insurance to companies which depend on coal for more than 50% of their business. It now has some of the strongest policies on the scorecard, which rates 25 of the world’s biggest insurers on their action on coal and climate change. Swiss Re and Lloyd’s have also informed Unfriend Coal that they will announce new policies in the coming months. In all, 15 insurers with over $4 trillion in assets have now taken or are planning action on coal, divesting an estimated $20 billion in equities and bonds or ceasing to underwrite projects, finds Insuring Coal No More: An Insurance Scorecard on Coal and Climate Change. But although the shift away from coal is growing, these early movers still need to do more, and most insurers have yet to do anything to prevent the risk of dangerous climate change. The scorecard finds that no U.S. insurer has taken meaningful action, nor have major European companies such as Generali, Hannover Re, Chubb and Mapfre. Coal is the biggest single source of CO2 emissions and insurers are uniquely placed to support the Paris Agreement commitment to keep climate change well below 2 degrees Celsius. Peter Bosshard, Unfriend Coal coordinator, said: “Coal needs to become uninsurable. If insurers cease to cover the numerous natural, technical, commercial and political risks of coal projects, new coal mines and power plants cannot be built and existing operations will have to shut down. Insurers also manage $31 trillion of assets, and by shifting investments from coal to clean energy they can accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. Read More here
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13 November 2017. Bloomberg, Big Insurers Brace for Perilous Future as Climate Risks Escalate. After one of the worst Atlantic hurricane seasons in history, the world’s biggest insurers say the industry needs to get its act together if it wants to survive climate change. Insuring against weather natural disasters could reach unaffordable levels for households and companies, while the potential damage is so unpredictable it may be impossible to model — an unacceptable risk to insurers. “Sometime in the future there will be the situation where people cannot afford any longer to buy catastrophe insurance — this is what we want to avoid,” Ernst Rauch, the head of the Corporate Climate Centre at Munich Re. The world’s largest reinsurer suffered a 1.4 billion-euro ($1.63 billion) loss after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria sent claims soaring. Contrary to Warren Buffett’s view that climate change will spur demand for coverage and boost profit at his insurance companies, the risk is the opposite unfolds as shifting weather patterns render disaster-prone areas uninsurable. Finding ways to prevent this is on the agenda of United Nations-backed climate talks in Bonn, Germany this week. The onus of bearing the expense of rebuilding after hurricanes, floods and earthquakes already falls disproportionately on governments. Insurers are on the hook for only about 10 percent of $75 billion of damage in Texas caused by flooding after Hurricane Harvey, according to AIR Worldwide. That’s because most standard U.S. home insurance policies don’t cover flooding. It’s a similar story in Fiji, hit last year by its worst cyclone ever, where less than one in ten people own insurance. “It’s a big concern of Swiss Re that there’s such a huge gap between the economic losses and what is insured,” said Peter Zimmerli, the head of atmospheric perils at Swiss Re, the second-biggest reinsurer. “Some of the signals of global warming are just there — they can’t be debated any more.” Read More here
13 November 2017, Carbon Brief, Analysis: Global CO2 emissions set to rise 2% in 2017 after three-year ‘plateau’. Over the past three years, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels have remained relatively flat. However, early estimates from the Global Carbon Project (GCP) using preliminary data suggest that this is likely to change in 2017 with global emissions set to grow by around 2%, albeit with some uncertainties. Hopes that global emissions had peaked during the past three years were likely premature. However, GCP researchers say that global emissions are unlikely to return to the high growth rates seen during the 2000s. They argue that it is more likely that emissions over the next few years will plateau or only grow slightly, as countries implement their commitments under the Paris Agreement. 2017 emissions likely to increase The GCP is a group of international researchers who assess both sources and sinks of carbon. It has published an annual global carbon budget report since 2006. Its newly released global carbon budget for 2017 provides estimates of emissions by country, global emissions from land-use changes, atmospheric accumulation of CO2, and absorption of carbon from the atmosphere by the land and oceans. Read More here