Austria’s Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) is to stop insuring new coal plants and mines, becoming the eighth insurer to announce restrictions on its cover for coal. The new coal policy is available here and Lucie Pinson, European coordinator of the Unfriend Coal campaign, is available for interview. She said: “VIG’s announcement that it will no longer […]
By Peter Bosshard, Coordinator, Unfriend Coal campaign Scientists have warned that we need to leave most fossil fuels in the ground to keep global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees. We cannot afford to build any new coal projects and must phase out existing coal power plants by 2030 in industrialized countries, and by 2050 in […]
By Peter Bosshard, Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal Campaign The withdrawal of insurance companies from the coal sector is starting to bite. Insurance rates for coal companies are rising, which adds to their difficulty competing with renewable energy providers. In this context it is deeply concerning that Aon, a global insurance broker, is offering to […]
The world’s largest insurance brokers have refused to rule out support for the giant Carmichael coal mine in Australia, despite growing opposition to the project among insurers and financial institutions. 73 organisations with a combined membership of more than 76 million wrote to Marsh, Aon, Willis Towers Watson, the JLT Group and Arthur J. Gallagher, […]
By Peter Bosshard, Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal Campaign Matching developers with insurers, insurance brokers play a critical (if often neglected) role in making coal projects happen. New mining or infrastructure projects are typically insured by syndicates of 15 or more participants. Their developers invariably rely on brokers to manage their risks and arrange the […]
Campaigners call on laggards to back UN climate targets and refuse support for disastrous project Ten of the world’s foremost insurance companies will not provide support to develop the controversial Carmichael coal mine in Australia, following the lead set by many global financial institutions, the Unfriend Coal campaign revealed today. Companies that have explicitly refused to […]
Organizations with 76 million members warn project would have disastrous impact on climate change Katowice, Poland––73 organizations, representing a combined membership of more than 76 million people, are sending an open letter to 30 global insurance companies today, calling on them to publicly rule out any insurance services for Adani Group’s Carmichael coal mine and […]
While Europe’s major insurers step back from coal, smaller ones and US, Japanese, and Australian insurance companies are enabling coal expansion from Poland to Australia. Date and time: Thursday, December 6, 12:30-13:00 (CET) Location: Press Conference Room Katowice (Area F) Contact:Patrick McCully, patrick@ran.org, +353 877 757 010 Speakers from Poland, Australia, France, and the United […]
Insurance companies are taking unprecedented action against the coal industry, ending insurance for coal companies, mines and power plants and excluding coal from $6 trillion of investments, reveals the Unfriend Coal campaign’s second annual scorecard on the industry. Momentum is growing as four of the world’s biggest insurers have announced new restrictions on coal insurance […]
We are facing twin crises: air pollution and climate breakdown, and the solution to both is absolutely clear: we need to close coal power plants and mines in Europe on a massive scale, and we need to do it by 2030 at the absolute latest. However, while the path we have to take is clear, […]
Four companies back expansion plans as industry leaders end cover for new coal power Four European insurers are continuing to support plans to expand Poland’s coal industry, reveals research from the Unfriend Coal campaign released today as the country prepares to host the UN Climate Summit next month. Germany’s Talanx, Austrian insurers Vienna Insurance Group […]
Milan, Italy – Following the Italian insurance company, Generali’s announcement today about its improved coal exclusion policy that puts an end to insuring new coal plants and mines, while turning away new coal clients with more than 30% of their energy production or revenues coming from coal, Greenpeace Italy climate campaigner, Luca Iacoboni, said: “With […]
For immediate release Generali and Vienna Insurance Group (VIG) have signed a 365,000 euro contract to insure a recently finished 660MW coal power plant in the Czech Republic, undermining international action to tackle climate change and clean up Europe’s air, the Unfriend Coal campaign revealed today. Coal is the biggest single source of CO2 emissions. […]
By Lucie Pinson | European Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal campaign This weekend, thousands of activists from all over Europe are occupying RWE’s Hambach site, a giant open-pit lignite mine in North Rhine-Wesphalia in Germany (1). This annual mobilization has become a symbol of the fight against fossil fuels and has even greater significance this […]
By Lucie Pinson | European Coordinator of the Unfriend Coal campaign This weekend, thousands of activists from all over Europe are occupying RWE’s Hambach site, a giant open-pit lignite mine in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. Called Ende Gelände, this huge annual mobilization has become a symbol of the fight against fossil fuels (1). RWE is […]
By Lucie Pinson, European coordinator, Unfriend Coal campaign. In four days, the IPCC will release its report on the consequences of a +1.5°C global warming. Their conclusions will be unquestionable: There is still time to prevent runaway climate change and its disastrous social impacts. But this would require tremendous immediate climate action and a thorough phase-out of […]
by Peter Bosshard, Campaign Coordinator, Unfriend Coal Ever more serious hurricanes, wildfires and floods have triggered record losses for the insurance industry, and regions which are particularly threatened by extreme weather events are at risk of becoming uninsurable. Given these trends you would think that U.S. insurers would have turned out in large numbers to […]
By Lucie Pinson, European Campaign Coordinator, Unfriend Coal At a time when every effort should be made to wean the world from fossil fuels, German company RWE announced that it intends to begin the clearance of the ancient forest of Hambach from 14 October 2018, in order to expand Europe’s largest open-pit mine, the Hambach […]
By Kuba Gogolewski, Senior Finance Campaigner, Foundation “Development YES – Open-Pit Mines NO” Poland is the country most dependent in the European Union on dirty and polluting coal, and is the only EU country that is still planning a massive expansion of its coal sector. If built, the pollution from these plants will lead to the premature […]
By Daniel Schreiber, CEO of Lemonade You wouldn’t think your insurance company would invest your premiums in businesses that increase the catastrophes you’re paying them to protect you against. Think again. A recent study published in the scientific journal Climatic Change showed that emissions from products and processes of 90 fossil fuel companies – the […]