German reinsurance company Munich Re has joined other large insurance companies in announcing it will limit the number of investments in companies that rely on burning coal for their income, further ratcheting up the economic pressure on coal.
Last year saw insurers pay out $50 billion in insured losses from natural disasters, according to The Guardian. The Kyushu Island earthquakes in Japan ranked as the two largest disasters. These two events saw insurers pay out $6 billion from $31 billion in total damages. Chinese flooding last summer near the Yangtze River caused $28 billion in losses, and was the largest weather-related disaster cost wise in 2016, said Jeff Masters of Weather Underground. However, only $300 million was insured from the third-largest non-US weather disaster in recorded history.
The Chinese solar energy giant Wuxi Suntech has enlisted the services of two large insurance companies, one German and one Chinese — Munich RE and Ping An, respectively — in order to offer improved insurance protection for customer module warranties. The new insurance policy offers a 25-year warranty protection period, … [continued]
The huge project to build a $555 billion renewable energy “belt” in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, funded largely by German companies, moved another step forward a few days ago. The articles of association for the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII) were signed by the joint venture group … [continued]
Desertec has for years been just the pipe dream of an international network of scientists and engineers; an example of some seriously out-of-the-box thinking on climate change prevention. It is the ambitous plan to power Europe, the Middle East and Africa off renewable power strung along a giant new supergrid … [continued]
