Insurers have warned that climate change could make cover for ordinary people unaffordable after the world’s largest reinsurance firm blamed global warming for $24bn (£18bn) of losses in the Californian wildfires. In the long run it might become a social issue,” he said after Munich Re published a report into climate change’s impact on wildfires. After comparing observational data spanning several decades with climate models, the report concluded that the wildfires, which killed 85 people, were “broadly consistent with climate change”. Climate change threatens ability of insurers to manage risk Read moreNicolas Jeanmart, the head of personal insurance, general insurance and macroeconomics at Insurance Europe, which speaks for 34 national insurance associations, said the knock-on effects from rising premiums could pose a threat to social order. Climate scientists say that linking extreme weather events to climate change is akin to attributing the performance of a steroid-taking sportsman to drug use – the connections are clearer in patterns than in individual disasters.

Source: The Guardian March 21, 2019 13:07 UTC