[Emphasis is from original. --Ed.]
The announcement by Suncorp that it will no longer insure new thermal coal projects, along with a similar announcement by QBE Insurance a few months earlier, brings Australia into line with Europe where most major insurers have broken with coal.
US firms have been a little slower to move, but Chubb announced a divestment policy in July, and Liberty has confirmed it will not insure Australia's Adani project.
Other big firms such as America's AIG are coming under increasing pressure.
Even more than divestment of coal shares by banks and managed funds, the withdrawal of insurance has the potential to make coal mining and coal-fired power generation businesses unsustainable.
As the chairman and founder of Adani Group, Gautam Adani, has shown in Queensland's Galilee Basin, a sufficiently rich developer can use its own resources to finance a coal mine that banks won't touch.
But without insurance, mines can't operate.
(Adani claims to have insurers for the Carmichael project, but has declined to reveal their names.)
Why are insurers abandoning coal?
By the nature of their business, insurers cannot afford to indulge the denialist fantasies still popular in some sectors of industry. Damage caused by climate disasters is one of their biggest expenses, and insurers are fully aware that that damage is set to rise over time.
It's becoming easier to finger climate culprits...
Until recently, the most immediate problem facing potential litigants has been demonstrating that an event was the result of climate change as opposed to something else, such as random fluctuations in climatic conditions.
[...] The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society has highlighted three extremes in 2016 that would not have occurred if not for the added influence of climate change:
[...] ...and to allocate liability
The second line of defence against climate litigation that has held so far is the difficulty of imputing damage to the companies that burn fossil fuels.
While it is true that all weather events have multiple causes, in many circumstances climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels has been a necessary condition for those events to take place.
Courts routinely use arguments about necessary conditions to determine liability.
For example, a spark from a power line might cause a bushfire on a hot, dry, windy day, but would be harmless on a wet cold day. That can be enough to establish liability on the part of the company that operates the power line.
These issues are playing out in California, where devastating fires in 2017 caused damage estimated at US$30 billion and drove the biggest of the power companies, PG&E, into bankruptcy.
[...] When governments are successfully sued...
The remaining line of defence for companies responsible for emissions is the history of courts in attributing climate change to decisions by governments rather than corporations.
In the Netherlands, a citizen action group called Urgenda has won a case against the Dutch government arguing it has breached its legal duty of care by not taking appropriate steps to significantly restrain greenhouse gas emissions and prevent damage from climate change.
The government is appealing, but it has lost every legal round so far. Sooner or later, this kind of litigation will be successful. Then, governments will look for another party that can be sued instead of them.
...they'll look for someone else to blame
Insurance companies are an easy target with deep pockets. Despite its hopeful talk quoted above, AIG would find it very difficult to avoid paying up if Californian courts found the firms it insured liable for their contributions to a climate-related wildfires or floods.
This is not a message coal-friendly governments in the US or Australia want to hear.
But the decision of Suncorp to dump coal, just a couple of months after the re-election of the Morrison government, makes it clear that businesses with a time horizon measured in decades cannot afford wishful thinking. They need to protect themselves against what they can see coming.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:49PM (4 children)
You can't have a climate without change, there is no "added influence". This is ridiculous. These people do not care how retarded it sounds anymore, this is a total power and money grab.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:40PM (3 children)
The real news behind the fake news is, SJW's, incels, and various other creatures are beginning to take over from their aging superiors.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:12PM
We know what to do with SJWs and incels. Throw them in the navy. That'll straighten them out.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:47PM (1 child)
So much for civilization. It was nice while it lasted. I'm glad I got to be in the tail-end of it, at least.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:43PM
Runaway came out kinda twisted, though, to the extreme right.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @01:58PM (11 children)
Global production of steel is still increasing, by a double every 10 years in average. So, I do not believe in any possible decrease of coal, this is just pure propaganda nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:08PM (1 child)
How much coal is needed to make steel? I haven't played Runescape in a while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:47PM
3 to 7x depending on skill, equipment and other variables but don't forget that a RND (20) GBR coral cluster needs to be scarified per 1 tonne of coal processed
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:48PM
You know that you can have coal for coke without needing it for the fucking smelting, right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:02PM (7 children)
It's not just coal. It's all hydrocarbons (coal, oil, natural gas, etc.). Our current economy is dependent on them. Period. If you want proof, do a correlation between world economic growth and the usage of hydrocarbons over the last 50 years. It's a linear relationship. To get economic increases, you need to burn more hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are the engine driving our economies, worldwide. Yes, look it up, it's true.
If we want to reduce the amount of hydrocarbons we use, we need to;
1) provide alternatives (nuclear is the only one that could scale significantly, but that's a no go today), or
2) accept a flatline economy, or worse, a decline in economy, or
3) reduce the number of people such that per capita economy is the same or larger, or
4) a combination of all that makes significant impacts.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:36PM (2 children)
5) make fossil fuels so expensive that it forces the alternative - which has shown to be economically disastrous, but could be done gradually to allow the economics to balance (ever so slowly...)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:02PM (1 child)
Number 5 should be easy enough. Remove all the subsidies fossil fuels get and make them pay their own cleanup costs.
(Score: 3, Touché) by RS3 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:16PM
What? Common sense? That's a thing the fiction writers use, right? We don't allow that sort of thing here. Harrumph.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:58PM
Correlation is not causation. Just because we have been using the easily available hydrocarbons doesn't mean that they're the only possible energy source; it just means that their widespread availability made it easy to experiment with them and we were able to find reasonable balances of cost versus energy output.
All of which sounds great to me. We could certainly start building larger and better solar electric plants rather than use nuclear, more wind farms, or other forms on "green" energy like geothermal or tidal energy production. And we should accept both a reduction in population (people suck and the life that future people are going to lead if we say on the same path is going to suck, too) and a flatline or decreasing economy (infinite growth is what cancer does, why should our economy be cancer?).
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday August 13 2019, @06:32PM (1 child)
Sorry, but the current design of nuclear plants used in the US is not suitable for massive expansion. Solar + batteries would be better.
OTOH, some of the advanced designs that have started showing up *do* show tremendous promise. E.g. the molten salt reactors, which can be based on the Thorium cycle and are reputedly able to consume the fuel from spent fuel rods. But traditional designs have slowed the work on the advanced designs, and currently only solar and wind are proven. and in most locations wind is too erratic. (OK, I left out geo-thermal, but that also only works in specific locations. And there's hydro, but most of the best locations are already in use.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:27PM
Although the total emissions of radionuclides from coal firing greatly outweigh* those from nucular plants.
*Lots of references out there, but I can't be bothered looking right now.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:39PM
> If you want proof, do a correlation ... It's a linear relationship
LOL. LOL LOL LOL! Correlation is definitely causation! And in the direction you claim! It's definitely coal driving progress, not progress consuming more generic energy.
Would you like to know which starlet's film career correlates perfectly with rectal cancer? http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations [tylervigen.com]
Why are oil shills even bothering here? Is this a textgenerator bot or are you human? How much do you get paid - is it by the hour, by the post, by the word? Do you get rated on how convincing you come across? Do you get bonus points if forums upmod or like or use whatever feature to mark you as good?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mojo chan on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:04PM (7 children)
If it ever becomes possible to prove harm is directly linked to coal, the liability could be enormous. Obviously they don't want to be providing liability insurance to a company that gets sued for trillions.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 13 2019, @03:24PM (1 child)
Can't insurance companies be compelled to retroactively provide insurance once liability is established?
This is the USA after all!
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:35PM
Yes, if the suit is based on something that occurred while the insurance policy was in place, the insurers would likely have to pay. However, not renewing the policies would mean that there would eventually be no exposure for the firms as there would no longer be any ability to file suit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 13 2019, @04:01PM (4 children)
Just convince a jury. The real problem is liability law, which has gotten this bad. Insurers are probably looking at stuff like the recent talc powder lawsuits and seeing the writing on the wall. Result is that yet another a bunch of developed world industries have transitioned to becoming uninsurable.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:37PM (1 child)
Spoken like somebody that doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. They found talc literally in the middle of those tumors and the manufacturer was aware of the problem ages ago. J&J didn't even need to sell it as they had plenty of other sources of revenue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:26AM
Meaning what? The talc usage in question would have resulted in talc being present in those tumors no matter what the cause.
And as I recall, addressing that problem too ages ago.
And nobody needed to use it either. Those "need" games go both ways.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 14 2019, @02:16AM (1 child)
What a tamed reaction, khlallow!
What, not protesting about banks first and now insurers overreacting to the "carbon and climate change" relations that hasn't been conclusively proven?
Where's your fire in the belly? Or is it a case closer to: "those ragtag scientists be dam'd, but when people with money change their minds maybe I should change mine too"?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 14 2019, @03:43AM
What overreaction? Leave food lying on the floor and vermin will get it. These guys aren't oblivious to the tens of billions of dollars of public spending on nebulous climate change, or the potential profits of carbon market trading. It's big action and they're all in.
If, for example, the EU was spending tens of billions a year on stopping Moon Nazis, then these businesses would be seeing the dire effects of green cheese poisoning wherever they look. The smart money plays to the funding source's hysteria, until the funding source runs out.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:10PM (11 children)
Translation: There isn't enough guaranteed profit in it, and they can afford to be picky.
Solution for states that are coal-dependent: Write it into state law that if power plants are to be insured at all then they must be willing to cover producers of all forms. There will be one or two who will then accept the risk, with appropriate premium adjustments all around.
I'm all for renewable energy and going greener and encouraging that- this is a good thing! But according to EIA [eia.gov], coal was still responsible for 27.4% of energy generation. That's still too big of a slice of the pie to ignore, and I'd rather not have rolling blackouts, thank you.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
Nationally, indemnify coal plants that are in operation in states which do not allow production/expansion of further coal facilities.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:13PM
So socialise the costs? Great thanks.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:49PM (7 children)
Yeah, but Green New Deal, or whatever the squat club calls it. O'Crazio Cortez is promoting this stupidity, along with her fellow squatters. There's really nothing wrong with women in politics, but WTF do lefties have to elect longhaired big-teated bubble-headed girls, some of whom are not even big-teated or long haired?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voX4HL0PnTg [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFBXYrIE4u8 [youtube.com]
Funny thing - I searched youtube for that song, and it offered me dozens of other songs. I figured youtube had censored it, so I searched with the duck. The duck pointed me straight back at youtube. Apparently, youtube will host it, but insists on burying it in the search results.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @02:54PM (1 child)
The "Green New Deal" and the "Modern Monetary Theory" used to justify it are literally Nazi economics. Just read some of this: https://mises.org/library/vampire-economy. [mises.org]
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:47PM
No.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @05:35PM
Your rhetoric is traitorous and racist. You are letting the MSM dictate your emotions you fool.
(Score: 2) by Codesmith on Wednesday August 14 2019, @12:56PM (3 children)
Jesu Christus, Runaway. I know you are a die hard right-winger (having debated with you in the past) but being a full-on sexist asshole is a new low for you.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 14 2019, @01:28PM (2 children)
I'm NOT sexist. I think women being allowed out of the kitchen and the house is a Good Thing. I'm only complaining that people seem to elect the least qualified women - just like they elect the least qualified men. HEY! I have an idea! How about we establish QUALIFICATIONS for each and every elected, as well as appointed, office! For starters, let's ensure these people are literate!
(Score: 2) by Codesmith on Thursday August 15 2019, @02:05PM (1 child)
Seriously dude, if you cannot see that your screed is blatantly and offensively sexist (squat club, really?) than you have bigger problems than you think.
Your POTUS and Senate Majority Leader are have no more qualificatons than any of those women that are mentioned, yet I don't see you calling them out and they have the potential to do (and already have done) great damage to the Untied States.
Pro utilitate hominum.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 15 2019, @02:19PM
"blatantly and offensively sexist" Yes. Is there a problem with that? Who, exactly is offended? I'm not. Well, I'm offended just exactly as much as I'm offended when the various Bitch Clubs start blabbering about "Toxic masculinity". It's all meaningless bullshit, after all.
I don't want to argue specific qualifications at this point in time - but if those squatters are "qualified", then half the loony tunes that my wife cares for in the "group home" are also qualified. I hope that I can at least rule out those who can't feed or bathe themselves?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @11:34PM
They likely just won't insure power plants in those states then. There are no insurance companies that just insure power plants, they have other areas that they insure and the cost of providing insurance in those cases is going up due to climate change.
The lost revenue from not insuring those plants and forcing them to shut down as a result is likely to be offset by reductions in other areas.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by istartedi on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:15PM (3 children)
Home-owners policies exclude things like earthquakes and floods. Why can't the insurance companies write policies that exclude climate impact? Even if they couldn't, policies have some kind of payout limit, right? So how can a plant be "Completely Uninsurable". It doesn't pass the smell test. I think maybe the insurance companies simply value the good will of "not supporting coal".
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:25PM (2 children)
I don't think you're getting the rationale here. I admit I wasn't certain about it when I first heard about it.
Basically, what the insurance companies are saying is: we are experiencing HUGE losses due to climate change, because we're needing to pay out MASSIVE amounts from natural disasters (flooding, hurricanes, extreme heat causing wildfires, etc.). The extreme events are unforeseen by actuaries who originally calculated the risk based on historical trends, but when huge areas flood that never flooded before due to storms unlike anything ever seen before, the insurance market can't keep up and ends up paying out huge numbers of claims that they never expected to. Many insurance companies are gradually modifying policies to eliminate flood coverage in many areas (or require significant extra premiums), but weather is becoming unpredictable enough that the actuaries can't keep up with reasonable predictions and thus the companies end up with surprises and sudden payouts (which make insurance unsustainable in such areas).
Coal plants and coal producers (like mines) are some of the worst offenders in producing greenhouse gases (which are the cause of climate change), and therefore a contributing cause of our huge losses. (Follow some of the links in TFA if you want to read about the magnitude of recent payouts due to more extreme weather events.)
Therefore, we will refuse to insure coal plants, because the coal plants are actively doing stuff that is ruining our business longterm.
The problem isn't insuring the plants themselves -- it's insuring all the other stuff that's getting ruined because of them.
Perhaps. But the entire insurance industry? I can imagine some insurance companies wanting to look good, but why wouldn't some unscrupulous company jump in and charge a huge premium then? They want to make money.
Unless their actuaries are actually right. Insurance actuaries are the people who really can't BS statistics, since their entire industry depends on accurate predictions. If weather events that used to be extreme outliers no longer are, "insurance" as a concept becomes unsustainable.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday August 13 2019, @10:33PM (1 child)
(Important qualification: At the beginning of my post, when I said "huge losses," I meant unexpected losses in certain geographical areas. I don't know how many insurance companies are actually losing money overall. But they are making lots of unexpected payouts, which impacts their expected returns and profits. If the actuaries tell the management and the stockholders that they'll be getting smaller bonuses because of that, the company might take action to mitigate such effects. Insurance is a generally a long-term business: they need to care about risk decades in the future to reliably price policies and to manage the portfolio of income they get by writing policies. If they can't make accurate predictions, they can't make a profit.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 14 2019, @04:02AM
According to the figures I found, in some areas the average loss ratio is 86% and reinsurance rates are climbing as well. In addition, the unhealthy range starts at 60% because the expense ratio averages somewhere in the mid-30s. That would mean at a loss ratio of 85 with an expense ratio of 35, their total loss is 120%, or they lose 20 cents for every premium dollar brought in if they don't have a reinsurance payout to offset.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13 2019, @08:22PM
i dont think insurance works like that. unless we assume everybody needs insurance for some thing or another.
so the person wanting a coal burner for electricity calls insurance, they say "yes" AFTER calling the actual engineering and building company and giving them a stern "talking too" and reminder that ... for the time being THEIR insurance premiums arent rising ... and congratulations on landing the construction job for the new coal burner ...?
i just wish the coal burners would have invested in "alternatives" more instead of just oxidizing coal oldskool? MHD generator anyone? japanese and russians gave it a go? more on wikipedia?