European insurers Lloyd’s, Zurich and Munich Re are the biggest supporters of Canada’s Trans Mountain pipeline, enabling a huge expansion of tar sands oil that would undermine international climate targets, the Unfriend Coal campaign reveals today. Trans Mountain is pressing ahead with plans to expand its pipeline connecting tar sands in Alberta to the […]
NGOs warn industry risks repeating mistakes made when it identified pandemic danger. Insurers must champion a green and fair recovery from the COVID-19 crisis because as professional risk managers they have a unique understanding of global threats, international NGOs supporting the Unfriend Coal campaign say in a letter to industry associations released today. They say […]
Keep up to date with the latest on coal, climate & insurance – Sign up to receive Unfriend Coal News Alerts here. New York pension funds ask insurers to ditch coal On Friday 24th April, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer on behalf of the city’s pension funds called on AIG, Berkshire Hathaway and Liberty Mutual […]
By Peter Bosshard In 2013, 3,000 insurance executives were polled to identify the most serious extreme risks facing the industry. By a large margin, they identified the world’s greatest threat as “a new, highly infectious and fatal” pandemic. In case you were wondering, an “invasion of non-peace-seeking aliens” was ranked lowest among 57 different risk […]
Keep up to date with the latest on coal, climate & insurance – Sign up to receive Unfriend Coal News Alerts here. Will Marsh drop the Adani contract? For more than a year Marsh, the world’s largest insurance broker, has tried to arrange insurance cover for the Adani Group’s giant Carmichael coal mine project in […]
AIG CEO Brian Duperreault clearly hasn’t gotten the memo. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has demonstrated that we cannot afford to build any new coal projects and need to phase out existing capacity quickly if we want to have a fighting chance of achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. The UN Secretary General […]
The insurance industry’s shift away from coal, the biggest source of CO2 emissions, is accelerating. When we launched our 2019 coal insurance scorecard in early December, we were excited to see that since April 2017, 17 insurers had withdrawn from the coal sector. What used to be a European phenomenon had also ignited action among […]
46% of reinsurance market and 37% of industry’s global assets covered by coal exit policies The new 2019 report is available at https://unfriendcoal.com/2019scorecard. The number of insurers withdrawing cover for coal has more than doubled in 2019 as the industry’s retreat from the sector accelerates and spreads beyond Europe, the Unfriend Coal campaign reveals today […]
Written by Foundation “Development YES – Open-Pit Mines NO Unfavourable trends in the global reinsurance market, risks related to climate change, and key reinsurance and insurance companies moving away from coal – these are the most important challenges for the power insurance market in 2019 according to experts from Willis Towers Watson. Apart from the unfavourable trends […]
Today, insurer AXIS Capital (NYSE: AXS) announced a new policy on fossil fuels to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. In an unprecedented step for a U.S. insurer, AXIS Capital will restrict insurance for both coal and tar sands projects and companies. “We welcome AXIS Capital’s new policy as a major win for our […]
By Peter Bosshard, Coordinator, Unfriend Coal campaign In a welcome move, Axis Capital and Canopius withdrew their bids for insuring the railway line of the Adani Group’s proposed Carmichael coal mine last week. This brings the number of insurers and financial institutions which have ruled out supporting the Adani project in some way to 16 […]
By Lucie Pinson, European Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal campaign The New York climate week opened this morning with the launch of a new asset owner climate alliance. The 12 signatories, among whom we can find the Unfriend Coal targets Allianz, Swiss Re and Zurich, have committed to transitioning their investment portfolios to net-zero GHG […]
By Lucie Pinson, European Coordinator of Unfriend Coal To keep global warming to 1.5°C, we urgently need to phase out coal. The insurance industry, to its credit, is beginning to realize this and take action. Momentum is growing within the industry to adopt coal policies: Since 2015, 16 insurers have restricted investment and/or insurance exposure […]
By Peter Bosshard, Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal campaign The All Blacks are the world’s most successful rugby team and a symbol of New Zealand’s national pride. They are also the favorite with the bookies to win this year’s Rugby World Cup, which starts in Japan later this week. The All Blacks invited controversy in […]
Hurricane Dorian has just ripped through the Bahamas, causing catastrophic damage, injuries and fatalities. Wildfires continue to wreak havoc in California, and flash flooding and a freak hailstorm caused chaos and destruction in Spain last month. Climate change is supercharging extreme weather and natural disasters. It is hard to imagine that any company wouldn’t strive […]
Over 110,000 petition signatures handed over at the insurer’s Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane offices calling for the American company to rule out insuring the controversial mine. SYDNEY – On Thursday, protesters descended on the Australian offices of insurance giant AIG, demanding that the company rule out backing Adani Group’s proposed Carmichael coal mine. The Adani mine […]
The Unfriend Coal campaign and Market Forces urge insurance brokers Aon and Marsh to retract their advisory roles in a proposed $2.6 billion Vietnamese coal-fired power station – linked to “excessive” environmental, health and human rights impacts – in letters released today. The project, Van Phong 1, is set to be built in Van Phong […]
UNCEDED COAST SALISH TERRITORY (VANCOUVER, BC) — A global coalition of 32 environmental, Indigenous, and citizen groups is calling on the companies listed on the insurance certificate for the existing Trans Mountain Pipeline to drop their policies ahead of the August 31 renewal deadline. Citing massive political and environmental risks from one of the most […]
Aviva’s new ESG fund falls short of a “unanimous vote in favour” for a fossil-free fund from the £140m actors’ union pension group, Equity Pension Scheme. On the second day of London’s first ever Climate Week, activists from Pension to be Proud and Fossil Free London, with the support of Unfriend Coal, gathered to repeat […]
Chubb, the Largest Commercial Insurance Company in the U.S., Announces New Policy to Address Climate Change July 1st, 2019 – Today, Chubb (NYSE: CB), the largest commercial insurance company in the United States, announced a new policy on coal to address the climate crisis. According to the policy, Chubb will stop insuring new coal-fired power […]