Insurance industry urges climate change help for developing world

UN News Centre: More than 100 of the world’s top insurance companies have issued a United Nations-backed call for governments to use risk management techniques and insurance know-how to help developing nations adapt to climate change.

Four insurance associations on climate change, including the UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), which together represent these 100-plus companies, made the plea yesterday in London to world leaders and negotiators talking part in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

“The insurance industry is making it clear: it has the expertise and the creative solutions to assist vulnerable countries and communities manage the risks of climate change,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). “But it is a partnership that works both ways,” he stressed, urging governments to harness insurance companies’ reservoir of risk assessment skills and to also make big cuts in emissions.

The recent floods in Pakistan, China and Niger are a timely reminder that the world must bolster its resilience to climate change, which is likely to have the most devastating effect on poorer countries.

Natural catastrophes – nearly 80 per cent of them weather-related – have amounted to losses of $90 billion annually for the past three decades. Some 85 per cent of all deaths associated with natural disasters occurred in developing countries….

Cyclone Gonu in 2007, from NASA