Polycrisis: An Opportunity to be Future-ready.

The Journal, Chartered Insurance Institute

July 6, 2023

https://thejournal.cii.co.uk/2023/07/06/polycrisis-opportunity-be-future-ready

In this blog-piece for the Journal of Chartered Insurance Institute, I allude to “Leadership in the Polycrisis: How UK Defense Training Can Help Us Navigate a Future of Unprecedented Environmental Disruption”.

That the record-breaking temperatures in much of the world are being driven by #emissions of heat-trapping gases is mainly caused by the burning of #fossilfuels is an established fact.

“They [fossil fuel companies] have produced no solutions that are scalable or remotely feasible. And they’ve actively fought against the solutions that others are trying to bring”, Al Gore has recently reminded us.

“I thought fossil fuel firms could change. I was wrong”, confesses Christiana Figueres.” The fossil fuel industry,” she says, “will have powered human development in the 20th century and then destroyed it in the 21st century.”

“We face an epochal, unthinkable prospect: of perhaps the two greatest #existential threats – environmental breakdown and food system failure – converging, as one triggers the other”: George Monbiot.

After ten thousand plus years of stable environment, the ground is now moving. “We face an epochal, unthinkable prospect: of perhaps the two greatest existential threats – environmental breakdown and food system failure – converging, as one triggers the other”. Reminds Damian Carrington of The Guardian.

Yet the money-pipeline (asset managers, banks and insurers) continue to invest in the segment. Insurers continue to insure them, as well.

Despite the onset of what is here to stay – #Polycrisis – insurers remain warped in silos and linearity. With the demise of #NetZeroInsuranceAlliance – some still wish to pretend their adherence. Insurers need to draw Polycrisis not only into their jargon but practice, as well. Its complexity, immensity and diversity threatens the very existence of the industry. Walking away from redlined segments is only the beginning of an end.

The report findings I allude to – “believe that emerging leaders from any setting wanting to enhance their capacity to manage the consequences of a more chaotic world are likely to benefit from adapting some of the approaches to leadership development used across the defense community”.