If you do an Internet search of “climate liability insurance“, you will quickly find that it is one of the latest schemes being promoted by insurance companies, banking and even fossil fuel companies to curb “dangerous climate change”. Here they stand to make huge piles of cash by claiming CO2 is causing bad weather. It’s the latest proposed scam to shake down hundreds of billions from consumers and the poor.
Switzerland’s Neue Züricher Zeitung NZZ (New Zurich Newspaper) has a commentary on the “merits” of climate liability insurance.
It works as follows: The “fact” that greenhouse gas CO2 is responsible for storms and thus the property damage they cause is pushed. Fossil fuel companies (at the start of the CO2 supply chain) are held liable for the resulting “climate damage”, and so are forced to buy climate liability insurance. In such a scheme the premiums are based on how much fossil fuel production each company is responsible for. Based on complex calculations, a figure of 15 dollars per tonne of CO2 would be payable by fossil fuel producing companies, in total 400 billion dollars annually. The huge costs added would then be passed along to the consumers and the poor, who find themselves at the bottom of the fossil fuel energy chain.
So what would happen to the 400 billion dollars in premiums that would be collected annually? The NZZ writes: “National, regional and local authorities would have the right to apply for compensatory damage payments because of storm damage to infrastructure” and “A part of the premiums would be invested in projects for the prevention of climate damage; financial instruments (e.g. catastrophe bonds and Green Climate Fund) are already available.” That means green energy companies.
In the end this all has the same effect as a hefty tax on the poor and middle class. Naturally big banks and insurance companies are salivating, as are green energy companies, governments and fossil fuel companies because they stand to profit handsomely.
The NZZ writes that climate liability insurance would be easier to implement because the scheme would not require any international treaty. Moreover, fossil fuel companies would have few qualms about playing along as they would have a good excuse to jack up energy prices. The NZZ:
Climate liability insurance functions when a number of relevant companies start using it. The pressure to play along would successively build up– through appropriate laws in individual countries and foremost because more and more companies, NGOs, and consumers would demand manufactured products be made with insured fossil fuels.”
In the end consumers would be willing to pay more because of having been tricked into believing they are improving the weather.
What would consumers really get in return? They’ll never see any perceptible changes in weather – perhaps a few hundredths of a degree less warming. Many consumers of course will complain about the dubious charging. But no problem, proponents will always be able to claim that the weather would have been worse had the consumers not paid the costs of climate liability insurance. Making tonnes of money with the weather has never been easier. The only thing that is needed are masses of gullible suckers who stand ready to believe anything.
If I recall correctly, even the IPPC have a ‘low confidence’ Extreme events.
From AR5 :
‘There is only medium confidence that the length and frequency of warm spells, including heat waves, has increased since the middle of the 20th century’
‘Confidence is low for a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness’
‘Confidence remains low for long-term (centennial) changes in tropical cyclone activity’
Given how the ‘we are 95% super duper confident projections’ have turn out….
Hard to immagine what a low confidence would mean for extreme event…
http://www.globalwarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/CMIP5-73-models-vs-obs-20N-20S-MT-5-yr-means1.png
This is the back door UN/USA carbon tax with greenpiss et al enforcing it through their already many court cases.
Funny coincidence. Here’s Munich Re – saying there was less storm damage than usual – yet manages to work in Climate Change by pondering whether CC caused the cold winter in USA.
http://www.munichre.com/de/media-relations/publications/press-releases/2014/2014-07-09-press-release/index.html
Gotta keep that panic (and the dough) goin’!
The love of irrefutable risk!
The $82 Billion Prediction
There is always a far greater risk that I will cock up the link:-
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/82-billion-prediction.html
Related. Steve Mc parses the BBC show pitting Sir Brian against Lord Lawson, and says the science (IPCC) supports sceptic Lawson.
http://climateaudit.org/2014/07/13/was-lawson-right-about-the-uk-floods/
Daniel and Connor Spreng (the father & son joint authors of the NZZ article) are merely trying to be creative. As long-term proponents of the “2000 Watt Society*,” they have been convinced for some time of the paradigm that mankind is over-consuming energy — therefore, we in the “developed world” are duty-bound to reduce our CO2 footprint.
So when father and son sit at the fireplace sipping organically-grown, climate-friendly merlot, the conversation inevitably turns to novel ideas to jump-start their efforts to drastically reduce human carbon dioxide emissions (particularly given the farce of the annual UNFCCC Global Climate Policy get-togethers). Cap & Trade has failed. Enter “Climate Insurance” — why not?
But calling this “insurance” requires downing a second bottle of climate-neutral fermented grape juice. After all, when one takes out an insurance policy, one usually pays a premium (typically a monthly, affordable rate), in expectation that the insurance underwriter will cover the property or other damages incurred in the event that the somewhat improbable scenario in question transpires.
Nothing of the sort applies here. The “insurer” in the case of “climate liability” doesn’t ever pay out the entity paying the policy. How convenient – from a bookkeeping perspective – at least in the eyes of the “insurer.” Even if one considers the planet (or humanity) to be the entity being insured [ostensibly against future climate damage], there exists no rational means to separate “human-caused” climate damage from “naturally-caused” climate damage.
Apparently unbeknownst to the authors, this is merely a repackaged form of the Medieval Roman Catholic Church practice of indulgences. The sketchy claim from the article “… more and more companies, NGOs, and consumers would demand manufactured products be made with insured fossil fuels” is based on the authors’ firm belief that burning fossil fuels is a sin, deserving of punishment. They just need to proselytize to sufficient citizens that the belief becomes universal.
Kurt in Switzerland
* http://www.2000watt.ch try to read the home page and convince yourself that this is NOT a faith-based organization!
This is a return to the Medieval Church practice of Indulgences.
Except back then, individuals like Luther and Zwingli caught on to the scam and convinced others to fight it and eliminate it.
We need more Luthers and Zwinglis today.
Kurt in Switzerland
P.S. Should be Neue Zürcher Zeitung
P.P.S. Longer comment apparently lost in moderation.
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