The NGO Reclaim Finance is asking French insurers Axa and Scor on Wednesday to do more to limit their coverage of the oil and gas industry on the occasion of the annual publication of the ranking of Insure our Future, a group of NGOs whose it belongs.
While more and more insurers and reinsurers are committing against oil and gas expansion, the French companies Axa and Scor have still not committed themselves to stopping coverage of new gas fields, which are incompatible with the objective of limiting the global warming 1.5 degrees, laments Reclaim Finance in a press release.
The first French insurer Axa is however well ranked among a college of 30 insurers and reinsurers worldwide: it comes in second place behind its German competitor Allianz.
In detail, its policy of excluding the coal and oil sands industries is welcomed, but its refusal to exclude in principle support for the gas industry brings it down to 7th place on this criterion.
Gas as transition energy
The reinsurer Scor is lagging behind: it leaves the Top 10 and even ranks 14th on the oil and gas dimension. The group only announced in May this year that it would no longer cover new oilfield projects.
At the current stage of the energy transition, gas is still seen as a transitional energy in many economies and we must support this transition, specified its managing director Laurent Rousseau at the time.
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Insurance is the Achilles’ heel of the fossil fuel industry and has the power to accelerate the transition to clean energy, said Insure our Future’s international coordinator Peter Bosshard, quoted in the statement.
All insurance companies must urgently align their activities with the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement and stop insuring new coal, oil and gas projects, he asks.
Among the institutions studied, 25 now have a coal policy and 19 have an oil and gas policy, according to Reclaim Finance.