Climate Meeting:Insurers, Bankers Present

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>> INSURERS, BANKERS DISPLAY STRONG PRESENCE AT CLIMATE MEETING   

 
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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> INSURERS, BANKERS DISPLAY STRONG PRESENCE AT CLIMATE MEETING   
 
BERLIN, 26 March 1995 (GP) On the eve of the Climate Summit, key
members of the financial sector [1] gathered today to discuss a
major emerging threat to capital markets -- climate change.     
The seminar, organised by Greenpeace [2], brought together
members of the insurance, reinsurance, banking and pension fund
industry who face enormous financial losses as climate-related
weather disasters around the world increase. 
 
"The insurance industry, in Munich, Zurich, London, New York and
Tokyo, have told me that if the dice roll badly in the great
greenhouse gamble, climate change could bankrupt the industry,"
Dr Jeremy Leggett of Greenpeace International told the meeting.  
 
The January European floods were a recent example of weather
catastrophes affecting the industry. The second 100-year floods
in two years added to an already long list of major disasters -
windstorms, drought-related wildfires, and floods - since 1987.
Munich re, the largest reinsurance company in the world, has
linked the floods to global warming, predicted a dramatic
continuing rise in catastrophe losses, and urged governments to
speed up progress at the climate negotiations. 
 
Just as the insurance industry is threatened with unmanageable
property-catastrophe losses, so the banks and pension funds face
threats to debt and equity investments, both from direct damage
from global warming, and indirect effects of governments
reacting too late and having to hastily force through policy
measures, Leggett told the meeting. 
 
For the first time in five years of negotiations on the Framework
Convention on Climate Change, these financial institutions have
registered for the meeting, to lobby governments for swift action
to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, especially C02 from the
burning of fossil fuels.  
 
This will provide a new dynamic in the business lobby at the
meeting, which has previously been dominated by the "carbon club"
-- representing major oil, coal and gas interests who are
fighting for inaction to protect their short-term economic
interests. 
 
But in the long term, climate change represents major risks to
the carbon fuel industry and those who invest in it.  Indeed, an
independent report commissioned by Greenpeace and written by Mark
Mansley, a former director and chief analyst of the Chase
Investment Bank, warns that increased carbon taxes and
limitations on the fossil fuel industry to combat climate change
could "seriously affect" the carbon fuel industry, reducing
profits and increasing risks for investors.   
 
Leggett warned the meeting that investments in these industries
would only exacerbate the financial risks faced by the threat of
climate change. 
 
"The day the first insurance company, bank or pension fund
invests preferentially in clean energy industries ahead of
carbon-fuel industries cannot be far off.  In a marriage between
the manifest technical viability of solar power and the
redirection of capital flows by financial institutions, lies the
seed of a solar energy revolution," concluded Leggett. 
 
                             ends
 
[1]  Speakers at the seminar:
* Dr Rolf Gerling, Gerling Institute for Risk Research, Zurich *
Dr Andrew Dlugolecki, Chief Manager, General Accident, UK  *
Frank Nutter, President, Reinsurance Association of America  * Dr
Sven Hansen, Vice President and Head of Environmental
Affairs, Union Bank of Switzerland
* Hilary Thompson, Head of Environmental Affairs, National
Westminster Bank, UK 
* Tessa Tennant, Head of Ethical Investment, National Provident
Institution, UK
* Kasper Muller, Ellipson, Switzerland
 
[2] if you want to register today for Sunday's seminar in Berlin,
please phone or fax Claudia Ranft, Greenpeace Germany 
++49 40 311 86 441 or fax 49 40 31186 141
 
GREENPEACE CONTACT NUMBERS 
 
Friday 24 March 
Cindy Baxter Greenpeace Communications ++44 71 833 0600
 
Saturday 25 March (from afternoon) 
Fouad Hamdan mobile phone in Germany ++49 172 381 81 40
 
Or either of us at Hotel Albrechtshof
Tel: +49 30 308 86 0
 
Greenpeace at the Climate Summit (From Tuesday)
 
    +49-30-304-1432
or      30-304-1433