7 May 2015: Decision makers from the G7 and developing countries, as well as representatives from the financial industry, academia and civil society came together for a high-level G7 Stakeholder Conference on Climate Risk Insurance, which saw the launch of the G7 Initiative on Climate Risk Insurance. The Conference convened under the theme ‘Reducing risks, insuring losses, increasing resilience,' and included a panel discussion with the participation of UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner and the President of the Republic of Kiribati, Anote Tong.
In a video message, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Conference that the “time is ripe” for a global initiative on resilience that anticipates and absorbs, as well as reduces, climate risks. He called for building on existing financial mechanisms, including the African Risk Capacity and Caribbean Risk Insurance Facility, and reiterated the important role that the insurance industry plays in helping “to ease the financial burden and protect the vulnerable.”
The Initiative aims to increase developing country resilience against climate-induced and other natural disasters, which, over the last decade, led to average economic losses of around US$190 billion annually. According to UNEP, the Initiative will aim to help align the insurance industry with the global development agenda.
Noting that 2015 presents an opportunity to include insurers into the core architecture of sustainable development for the coming decades, UNEP stresses the role insurers can play in reducing disaster risk, providing financial protection for vulnerable communities, and enabling resilience and environmental sustainability through financing for development (FfD).
UNEP also notes that the G7 Initiative has the potential to “inject fresh momentum” into the international sustainability agenda by: supporting the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage; engaging in public-private collaboration to improve data collection; and supporting the international community's efforts regarding risk management, risk reduction and emergency financing.
UNEP further underlines that the Initiative is also a crucial step towards enhancing collaboration between national and international political institutions, and the insurance industry. The UNEP Finance Initiative's (UNEP FI) Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), the largest collaborative initiative between the UN and the insurance industry, with 80 members representing more than 15% of world premium and US $9 trillion in assets, is part of efforts to attract greater participation of the insurance industry in the post-2015 development framework.
The PSI released the ‘United for Disaster Resilience Statement' during the 3rd UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) in Sendai, Japan, in March 2015. The Statement emphasizes that the insurance industry is well positioned to understand the economic and social impact of disasters given that main purpose is to understand, manage and carry risk.
The G7 Stakeholder Conference on Climate Risk Insurance took place in Berlin, Germany, on 7 May 2015. [UNEP Press Release] [Statement of the UN Secretary-General] [UNEP PFI PSI Website] [IISD RS Coverage of the WCDRR]
read more: http://climate-l.iisd.org/news/g7-insurance-industry-collaborate-on-climate-resilience/288125/
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