14/02/2018

Intelligence Agencies Warn Of Climate Risks In Worldwide Threat Assessment

InsideClimate News - John H. Cushman

While top Trump administration officials deny climate change, the intelligence agencies warn global warming can fuel disasters and violent conflicts.
Intelligence officials testified before a Senate committee about global threats. Left to right: FBI Director Christopher Wray, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Robert Ashley, National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers and National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In their annual summary of global threats, the nation's intelligence agencies warned on Tuesday that climate change and other environmental trends "are likely to fuel economic and social discontent—and possibly upheaval—through 2018."
While there may not be indications of an abrupt and cataclysmic event on the immediate horizon, the trends are already visible, they said in a statement presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee at a hearing where the Trump administration's top intelligence officials testified.
The statement was matter-of-fact and brief, but unambiguous. Normally, conclusions like these might not deserve much notice. But in an administration where top officials, including some with intelligence responsibilities, have repeatedly questioned the basic science of global warming, such a frank confirmation of the mainstream consensus was striking.
The intelligence agencies' Worldwide Threat Assessment contrasted with two other recent documents issued by the Trump administration: the National Defense Strategy published in January and the National Security Strategy published in December. Both of those broke from the pattern of recent years and omitted climate change as a significant concern.
The intelligence community, instead, aligned itself with science agencies. The report's views reflect those in the thoroughly peer-reviewed interagency National Climate Assessment issued last year, and the facts consistently reported by major scientific agencies like NOAA and NASA.
"Extreme weather events in a warmer world have the potential for greater impacts and can compound with other drivers to raise the risk of humanitarian disasters, conflict, water and food shortages, population migration, labor shortfalls, price shocks, and power outages," the intelligence threat assessment said. It was presented as the written testimony of Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence appointed by President Donald Trump.
"Worsening air pollution from forest burning, agricultural waste incineration, urbanization, and rapid industrialization—with increasing public awareness—might drive protests against authorities, such as those recently in China, India, and Iran," the assessment said.
"Accelerating biodiversity and species loss—driven by pollution, warming, unsustainable fishing, and acidifying oceans—will jeopardize vital ecosystems that support critical human systems. Recent estimates suggest that the current extinction rate is 100 to 1,000 times the natural extinction rate."
Water scarcity and disease outbreaks, two problems related to climate change, also pose risks, it said.
So does the most striking sign of the upheaval, waves of refugees displaced by complex stresses of climate, disease, poverty and other destabilizing factors, the report warned.
"Challenges from urbanization and migration will persist, while the effects of air pollution, inadequate water, and climate change on human health and livelihood will become more noticeable," the assessment said. "Domestic policy responses to such issues will become more difficult—especially for democracies—as publics become less trusting of authoritative information sources."

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None Of Our Insurers Are Keeping Pace With Climate Change

Fairfax - Julien Vincent

If any Australian company needs to come clean over its climate risks, it’s QBE.
Not just so shareholders can understand how secure (or not) their capital is as climate impacts intensify.
Hurricanes belted QBE as well as America. Photo: AP
This is about Australians being able to see just how perilous our future has become without urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Last October QBE said it expected 2017 to be the costliest year in the history of the global insurance industry, flagging a $US600 million ($767 million) hit to its pre-tax earnings. They weren't wrong, nor were they alone.
The triple-whammy of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria hitting the US and Caribbean contributed to a record $US135 billion in payouts globally on natural disasters. Wildfires in California made things worse and, for Australian general insurers, Tropical Cyclone Debbie added to the pain.
Tom Herbstein, of Cambridge University’s insurance industry-funded project ClimateWise, summed it up in saying “climate change fundamentally challenges the existing insurance business model.”
And understandably there have been some drastic responses from within the industry. Hannover Re was even forced to sell its entire stock portfolio, worth €953 million ($A1.5 billion) , prompted by natural disaster claims.
Costly natural hazards are nothing new to QBE or indeed any of Australia’s big three general insurers.
Insurers are divesting their coal investments Photo: Janie Barrett
Last year, individual large claims and natural hazards cost QBE $1.7 billion, or 15 per cent of the company’s net earned premium.
Compare this to the seven year average of 8.1 per cent to 2010, and you get an idea why QBE called it “unprecedented”.
Additionally, over the past decade, IAG under-provisioned for natural hazard claims by almost $1 billion while Suncorp under-provisioned by $1.9 billion.
It appears none of our general insurers are keeping up with the pace of climate change.
By January, QBE had received its fourth downgrade of the financial year, to the frustration of investors and analysts.
With QBE’s annual report due out at the end of this month, it would be reasonable for investors to expect a measure of climate risk disclosure from the insurer.
So far, nothing has been forthcoming. Though QBE is hardly alone. So far, only seven ASX top 50 companies have disclosed analysis of how they perform in a scenario where global warming is held to 2ºC or below.
Although every company faces climate risk to some extent, for QBE it is both acute and direct, since it stems from the impacts of climate change manifesting as claims. Plus, of course, managing the thorny issue of certain parts of the world simply becoming uninsurable.
The Climate Council has highlighted the increases in extreme weather and climate events Australia is facing as climate change intensifies.
But gradual changes to the climate also pose risks to transport, agriculture, infrastructure and most other sectors. For insurance companies, these all have a dollar value attached and bringing those figures to light will show the broader public just how acute the risks of climate change are.
That’s why it’s so important that insurance companies disclose their climate risks and why we need to be ready for what they say.

Global movement
Globally, insurance companies have begun responding to the threat of climate change. While most are keeping their assessment of the risk from climate change a closely guarded secret, many are at least moving to remedy one of the most stark contradictions in the sector: its exposure to highly polluting industries.
AXA, Allianz, Aviva, Lloyds, Munich Re, SCOR and Swiss Re are among those to have divested from coal companies from their investment portfolios, and/or restricted underwriting to the coal industry.
These actions are undertaken on the basis that it is incongruent for insurance companies whose business models are at exposed to th ephysical climate change impacts to be invested in or actively supporting the source of the problem.
Even Suncorp said at its AGM last year it would reduce exposure to fossil fuels in its equity portfolio to a negligible amount over the next two years.
QBE, however, has done no such thing.
Last year, chief executive John Neal revealed QBE was an insurer of Adani and refused to rule out support for projects like the Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin.
Perhaps with new leadership in Pat Regan, investors will start to see QBE join other insurers in disassociating themselves from the activities that cause climate change and disclosing the extent to it is a threat.
Investors need to know. We all need to know.

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Lack Of Women In Energy ‘Holding Back Fight Against Climate Change’

The Guardian - 

Gender imbalance at energy firms and industry events is slowing transition to greener power, claims expert
Women demonstrate against climate change in the US. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images 
The lack of women in energy companies is holding back the sector’s efforts to tackle climate change, a leading industry watcher has warned.
Catherine Mitchell, a professor of energy policy at the University of Exeter, said poor gender diversity meant the industry was less open to new ideas, in particular the move to a lower-carbon energy system.
“I absolutely do think that the fact that the industry is so dominated by men and particularly older white men it is slowing down the energy transition,” said Mitchell, who has worked on energy issues for more than 30 years and advises the government, regulators and businesses.
An energy conference featuring women-only panels is being held next month to address the lack of visibility of female leaders in the sector.
“I thought we really need to have something where all these women who are great get to speak,” said Mitchell, who has helped organise the event.
Catherine Mitchell, a professor of energy policy at the University of Exeter. Photograph: Simon Burt 
She admitted it was not a given that women are more progressive on energy issues than men, but noted that the “conventional” parts of the sector – fossil fuel power generation and energy networks – are more male-dominated than greener, innovative companies.
“The fact we are not moving is not good for Britain, is not good for the environment,” she said of attitudes slowing the transition to renewable and decentralised energy.
Juliet Davenport, the chief executive of the energy supplier Good Energy, said the argument was credible. “The energy sector is lagging sorely behind other industries in terms of diversity, meanwhile sustainable [green] businesses are very balanced. So the idea that lack of diversity is contributing to the issue of transition to renewables is very plausible,” she said.
Nearly two-thirds of the leading 89 energy companies in the UK have no women on their boards and industry events with men-only panels, or just one woman, are common.
One female energy expert said she had been disinvited from a panel of chief executives at an annual event after a company deputised a female executive.
“It became a panel of CEOs, with a woman, and so they did not ‘need’ another woman,” she said.
Sometimes it is a case of being the only woman in the room. One senior female executive said she was the sole woman at a meeting hosted by an influential male government adviser in London.
Sexual harassment is not unknown either: one female leader, who did not want to be named, said she was groped by the head of a trade body at an awards event several years ago.
Felicity Jones, a partner at the renewables and energy storage consultancy Everoze, recalled being in a speaker’s room at a conference when a fellow speaker asked for a coffee refill, assuming she was one of the catering staff.
“That kind of thing happens, but I laugh it off. Because it works both ways: often my gender gives me an advantage. I do a lot of business development and pretty much all of my counterparts at competitors are men. That means that I stand out,” she said.
Occasionally, the lack of gender diversity breaks out in public. During a recent questioning of energy chiefs by MPs on the impact of a price cap, the Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach said: “I am quite struck by the panel. We have four men here.”
Sandbach went on to scold the retail chief executive of SSE, Stephen Forbes, for the company’s 19.4% gender pay gap, a figure he attempted to defend.
Some in the industry are making an effort to address the problem, such as the big six lobby group Energy UK, which has banned men-only panels at its events. “The energy sector is undergoing a huge period of transition, which brings with it a huge opportunity to increase gender balance,” said the group’s external affairs director, Abbie Sampson.

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