Insurers take cover with global warming risks
Melbourne’s The Age is running a story titled Insurers take cover with global warming risks.
Bruce Thomas, a sustainability expert with reinsurer Swiss Re, told The Age he expected Australia to follow other countries where insurance had taken account of the effects of global warming.
“There are certain amounts of warming that are already built into the global climate system,” Mr Thomas said. “The in-built increases in temperature as a result of CO2 emissions that have already occurred mean that even if we do something dramatic starting today, or even next year, we will still see warming, and therefore likely climate change, during the first half of the 21st century.”
Mr Thomas said business interest in climate change was not soft or altruistic. Trends in environmental economics, including trading of carbon credits, offered opportunities for the financial services industry to create products and price the new risks.
The price of emitted carbon has troubled economists seeking to develop a a carbon trading market. Mr Jackson [the Australian Conservation Foundation's sustainability program manager ] said economic literature on the subject had arrived at a mid-range price of about $50 a tonne of carbon, but some estimates put the price as high as $600 a tonne.
Until the true costs of carbon emissions are factored into the global economy, polluters will have little incentive to stop polluting. Of course we people are moral beasts and don’t have to wait for amoral corporate polluters to be forced into action. We, as people, can participate in the carbon economy today.
Carbon Planet sells carbon credits to people and businesses alike, right now. If you fly, you can offset the flight. If you drive you can offset your fuel and the carbon cost inherent in the manufacture of your car. Sure it would be easier, and more just, if the fuel company, or the car company were to pay that carbon cost and then incorporate the expense into the cost of your car, but we are not at that stage yet. But that is our dream.
Imagine that every item you can buy has a ‘pollution free’ branded alternative. Imagine it only costs a tiny bit more. Much like the forestry and timber industry has proved with their sustainable forests certification system, people like you and me will pay a realistic price to know that the products they buy don’t incur any hidden, externalised, environmental costs that must be borne by our descendants. Global certification is something we are working towards, but you need not wait. You can offset your carbon footprint today. You can subscribe to a monthly feed of carbon credits, buy carbon credits as a gift and offset specific events. You can ask what your workplace, school or church-group is doing to reduce their CO2 emissions and encourage them to get involved.
The reality is that it’s we the people who will be paying to clean up the mess we’ve made, either by taking our responsibilities seriously and taking direct action, or we’ll pay indirectly with higher insurance premiums, plummeting property values, civil unrest, the stress of future uncertainty and in many cases personal tragedy. — DS
Technorati Tags: carbon credits, climate change, CO2, global warming, insurance, Swiss Re
