From time to time, the words of a song suddenly appear in our head and stay there for most of the day. Tragically, the song is rarely from our playlist and a crooner from decades ago has the effrontery to assume we secretly like them. Even worse, we encourage them, by humming along.
And so it is with me and the Bee Gees. They arrived while I was reading the latest news from Cop28: It’s only words…
They are still singing and there is nothing I can do about it, except hope Boyzone do not turn up with their cover version.
And so, a new deal has been agreed at the UN climate talks in Dubai, calling on all countries to “transition away” from the use of fossil fuels. That is not the same, of course, as phasing them out, something many governments wanted.
“Together we have confronted realities and we have set the world in the right direction,” Cop28 president, Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, said.
Except the “realities” at Cop28 included the OPEC cartel of oil-rich nations urging its 13 members, including Saudi Arabia, and OPEC+ countries to reject any agreement that aimed to slash fossil fuel production.
They also included a visit by someone indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, not to Dubai, but to Abu Dhabi next door, where he – Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin – met his Emirati counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, before jetting off (with an escort of four Russian fighter jets) to Riyad, to see Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
It is true no previous conference of the parties produced an agreement on a concerted move away from oil, gas and coal, but the devil is in the lack of detail. For example, the separate text on adaptation, which outlines how countries will prepare for climate change, is still yet to be passed. So far, so politically typical.
And so, to insurers.
“’The science is unambiguous: climate change is causing more regular and severe natural disasters,” the director-general of Insurance Europe, Michaela Koller, said after the Cop28 deal was announced.
In 2022 alone, Koller pointed out, global losses hit $275bn, adding this trend will accelerate if there is no significant cut to carbon emissions.
“This will have many negative consequences, one of which will be that insuring against the effects of climate change will become increasingly costly,” she said.
It is equally important to step up adaptation efforts, Koller continued, to reduce, as much as possible, the effects of climate change.
“Here, the main responsibility is with public authorities, but the insurance industry is committed to playing its part, and many insurers and insurance associations are in fact already involved in a whole range of initiatives to accelerate adaptation,” Koller said.
Among their activities at Cop28, insurers threw their weight behind a sustainable finance initiative. Alliant, Axa, Howden, Mosaic Insurance, Munich Re and WTW were the first to sign up to it. Hopefully, more will follow.
As for the climate deal in Dubai, it is only words, and words are all Cop has, to take fossil fuels away.
Which is why insurers must do all they can to turn “transition” into “exit”.