European energy crisis should be no surprise – Zurich Insurance chairman

LONDON (Reuters) – The European power disaster following Russia’s warfare in Ukraine ought to come as no shock and is a reminder that governments and firms ought to have switched extra rapidly to renewable power, the chairman of Zurich Insurance coverage mentioned on Thursday.

“There’s nothing massively stunning in what is going on now in issues of the value of power, of geopolitical rigidity,” Michel Lies, who can be steering committee chair of the Insurance coverage Improvement Discussion board, advised Reuters in an interview. He added it was like “anyone in January saying ‘oh crikey it is snowing’ – it snows generally in January.”

“We may have began somewhat bit earlier with extra renewable energies, which might have made us rather less depending on what is going on.”

The Insurance coverage Improvement Discussion board, a partnership between governments and insurers supported by the United Nations and the World Financial institution, is working to make nations higher ready for pure catastrophes, Lies mentioned, similar to by means of so-called parametric insurance coverage, which makes speedy funds if a specified disaster occurs.

The discussion board will report on the COP27 local weather summit in Egypt in November on its work to evaluate resilience to pure disasters all over the world, he added.

Along with local weather change, which is worrying industrial insurers similar to Zurich, Lies mentioned individuals’s want to maneuver to coastal cities was contributing to the scale of losses from pure disasters.

“There is a focus of individuals in cities, not too removed from seas and oceans.”

However he mentioned these making adjustments previously few years to enhance the atmosphere and reduce local weather change impacts had tended to neglect concerning the S in ESG – atmosphere, social, governance.

“The E overshadowed the S. We have been most likely naive sufficient to imagine that the E can be so fascinating for everyone, even when they have been shedding their job – it is not occurring like that.”

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; Modifying by Josie Kao)