Global warming fails to insure risk carriers stay glued to NZIA!

June 9, 2023

My Op-Ed for the illuminem, today: https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/global-warming-fails-to-insure-risk-carriers-stay-glued-to-nzia.

The timing to literally dismantle the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (#NZIA) couldn’t have been worse. Supposedly meant to evade anti-trust law suits, the biggest loser is #trust .

Just when, as ClientEarth reminds: “The world is rapidly running out of “carbon budget”, the amount of #carbondioxide that can be poured into the atmosphere if we are to stay within the vital threshold of 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures, according to a study published in the journal Earth System Science Data”.

This coincides with the world’s biggest oil companies handing executives nearly £15m in bonuses for hitting climate targets last year despite continuing to pump fossil fuels, says openDemocracy.

Research also continues to unearth more about the fossil fuel industry’s knowledge of climate change, writes the Guardian. A January study revealed that Exxon had made “breathtakingly” accurate climate predictions in the 1970s.

ClientEarth points out: New York City’s air quality emergency – thanks to the wildfires in Canada – is not the last time New Yorkers will experience smoke-filled air. Climate change makes wildfires worse and increases extreme fire activity in areas that have previously been unaffected.

Air #pollution has a huge impact on our health, reducing quality of live and cutting lives short. In fact, it’s the world’s largest single environmental health risk. One in three deaths from strokes, lung cancer and chronic respiratory disease globally are caused by air pollution.

State Farm and Allstate have recently stopped insuring homeowners in California. Could health conditions resulting from poor air quality be next on health insurers’ list?

#Climatelitigation in the US could be entering a “game changing” new phase, experts believe, with a spate of lawsuits around the country set to advance after a recent supreme court decision, and with legal teams preparing for a trailblazing trial in a youth-led court case beginning next week, says the Guardian.

The number of cases focused on the climate crisis around the world has doubled since 2015 – it says – bringing the total number to over 2,000, according to a report last year led by European researchers.

The insurance industry ought to decide which side of history does it wish to be, before it is too late.