Insurers warns on climate risk

Insurers will warn this week that urgent action is needed to reduce the risks from climate change if insurance is to remain affordable and widely available in the future.

Insurers representing a significant proportion of the UK market, including the biggest names, will this week sign up to a number of principles, supported by the Prince of Wales, for managing and reducing the risks from climate change.

The principles will attempt to encourage individuals and businesses to mitigate the risks from climate change, and will also endeavour to influence government policy.

The action comes as insurers and reinsurers face £3bn of claims from flooding in the UK, and homeowners and companies in flood-prone areas are expected to face higher premiums.

Peter Hubbard, chief executive of Axa’s UK general insurance business, and chairman of the Association of British Insurers’ working group on climate change, warned that if the risks associated from climate change were not reduced, then customers could see further price rises in the future.

“If we don’t reduce the risk as an industry, in conjunction with government and other stakeholders, the incidence of floods is likely to increase and in fact premiums will go up,” he said.

The action is also being announced just ahead of annual negotiations between insurers and the government over the agreement whereby insurers pledge to continue to insure existing customers at risk of flooding.

Link Financial Times

UN Wants More Funds To Tackle Climate Change

The United Nations climate change watchdog called here Monday for more investment and funds to address climate changes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In a report presented to a preparation meeting for the UN climate change summit slated to be held in Bali, Indonesia in December, the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said additional investment and financial flows of up to $210 billion will be needed each year by 2030 in order to maintain greenhouse gas emissions at current levels.
The UN climate change watchdog said the developing countries need a large share of investment and financial flows because of their expected rapid economic growth.
‘If the funding available… remains at its current level and continues to rely mainly on voluntary contributions, it will not be sufficient,’ the report warns.
On Monday, more than 1,000 delegates from over 100 countries gathered in the Austrian capital for the preparation meeting for the UN climate change summit in Bali, which will focus on the financial and economic aspects of battling climate change.
According to the UN report, while the estimated investment flows to developing countries in 2030 represent 46 percent of global needs, the resulting emission reductions achieved by these countries in 2030 would amount to 68 percent of global emission reductions

Link indiaenews

Time for new climate deal, says UN

The UN says momentum is building for tougher long-term action to fight global warming beyond the UN’s Kyoto Protocol and a climate meeting starting in Vienna on Monday will be a crucial part of the process.
Negotiators from more than 100 countries at the August 27-31 talks will seek common ground between industrial nations with Kyoto greenhouse gas caps until 2012 and outsiders led by the US and China, the biggest greenhouse gas emitters.
"Momentum is very much building," for wider action, Yvo de Boer, the UN’s top climate change official, said. "And Vienna’s going to be crucial." The Vienna talks will try to break a diplomatic logjam and enable environment ministers to agree at a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in December to launch formal two-year negotiations to define stiffer long-term curbs on greenhouse gases.

"All countries need to take more urgent action," South Africa wrote in an advance statement for the Vienna talks. "The pace of the climate negotiations is out of step with the urgency indicated by climate science."
Chances of a deal in Bali have risen sharply after reports this year blamed human activities, led by use of fossil fuels, for a changing climate set to bring ever more severe monsoons, heatwaves, droughts and rising seas.
Link Times of India