{"id":33722,"date":"2017-04-27T14:14:14","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/?p=33722"},"modified":"2017-04-27T14:14:14","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T13:14:14","slug":"insurers-urged-stop-underwriting-coal-projects-following-axa-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2017\/04\/27\/insurers-urged-stop-underwriting-coal-projects-following-axa-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Insurers urged to stop underwriting coal projects, following Axa move"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A coalition of green groups is calling on insurers to stop underwriting coal projects, on account\u00a0of the risk they pose to the climate.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The #UnfriendCoal campaign builds on the work of the divestment movement to make polluting fossil fuel ventures harder to finance.<\/p>\n<p>It launched on Wednesday as French insurance major Axa <a href=\"http:\/\/www-axa-com.cdn.axa-contento-118412.eu\/www-axa-com%2F803065f4-200e-4d5f-ae5e-93a716b8e2d9_axa_coal_policy_201704.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">announced<\/a> it was ending insurance support to\u00a0coal-intensive businesses. Companies getting more than half of their turnover from mining or burning coal are now eligible for Axa insurance cover\u00a0only in &#8220;exceptional&#8221; circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>That aligns its insurance business with its asset management arm, which is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/wires\/reuters\/article-4443862\/AXAs-fund-management-arm-cut-investment-coal-companies.html\">ditching \u20ac177 million<\/a> ($192m) of coal holdings, in line with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2015\/05\/22\/axa-to-ditch-500m-of-coal-holdings-in-2015\/\">2015 pledge<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Explaining its policy, the company said most fossil fuel reserves needed to stay underground to meet the goals of the Paris climate deal. Some assets could be &#8220;stranded&#8221; as the low carbon shift kicks in.<\/p>\n<p>Its statement added: &#8220;Coal is often a low-cost form of energy, and is widely available to a large proportion of the world\u2019s population. However, coal is also the most carbon-intensive energy source. Axa, like many investors, believes coal both poses the biggest threat to the climate and its business is the most likely to be constrained.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/newsletter-sign-up\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Weekly briefing:<\/strong> Sign up for your essential climate news\u00a0update<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/unfriendcoal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Profundo-report-final-0417.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a> by consultancy Profundo found that Europe&#8217;s 15 biggest insurance and reinsurance companies\u00a0still have\u00a0$130 billion invested in fossil fuels, however. Of these, 11 are heavily involved in\u00a0underwriting\u00a0dirty energy ventures.<\/p>\n<p>Friends of the Earth France, Greenpeace Switzerland, Market Forces, Re:Common, the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Project and Urgewald are behind a push for the sector to align with the climate goals adopted in the Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Insurance companies are supposed to help manage risk and protect the community, but by being such laggards on climate action, they&#8217;re contributing to the kind of catastrophic impacts from which they are supposed to protect us,&#8221; said John Hepburn, executive director of the Sunrise Project.<\/p>\n<p>The campaigners say insurers should avoid investment in companies that get at least 30% of revenue or power from coal and scale up finance to develop clean energy.<\/p>\n<p>Elena Gerebizza of the Italian campaign group Re:Common said: &#8220;The notion that insurance companies would still be underwriting new fossil fuel projects despite everything they know about the impacts of climate change is just plain irresponsible.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"#UnfriendCoal campaign targets the insurance sector to end support for climate-polluting fossil fuels","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3015,598],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3983],"class_list":["post-33722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-divestment","category-fossil-fuels","type-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Insurers urged to stop underwriting coal projects, following Axa move<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"#UnfriendCoal campaign targets the insurance sector to end support for climate-polluting 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