March 4 – Final report! The global week of action has just wrapped up THANK YOU to everyone who signed petitions, shared on social media, came to actions in Hartford, New York, Houston, Boston, and beyond.
Even more exciting, our actions have already had an effect! Probitas, one of the major insurers targeted in the UK, has ruled out insuring the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) and other major carbon bombs. You can read more about it in the blog post here and thanks to the amazing team at Insure our Future US and International who made it all possible.
Check out the quick video reporting back on our Boston Action, and like and subscribe to our social media accounts to see more!
February 27 Update – Welcome to Day 2 of our global week of action!
Amazing events have been taking place all over the world – Major actions on Monday were in the UK and Uganda, as well as in Hartford, CT, and today in New York City, NY. The best place to catch all the events and share them is on social media using the hashtag #InsurOurFutureNOW. You can check our pages for some updates
And it’s not too late to find an action! Click here or scroll down to see our original invite and the map of ongoing actions. No event in your area? No problem. You can plan your own event (click here for an action pack to help get you started), or sign & share our message to the insurers of the Rio Grande LNG export terminal.
Tag @lloydsoflondon to put pressure on the insurer!
Send a tweet to the insurers with our friends @StopTheMoneyPipeline now. Or like and share this tweet from End Fossil Fuel Uganda!
Invitation to the week of action
Fossil fuel projects need three things to operate: permits, money, and insurance. And to stop the climate crisis, we need to shut down all three. Without insurance, fracking wells, LNG facilities, and pipelines can’t be built. Insurers are also big investors, with hundreds of billions of dollars invested in coal, oil and gas companies.
Without the support of the insurance industry, the reckless expansion of climate-wrecking fossil fuels is not possible. That’s why last week, insurance activists disrupted a golf tournament sponsored by Chubb over their role in the LNG buildout. But a new report launched this week by our friends at Rainforest Action Network shows that insurers are increasing investment in fossil fuels, despite promising to align their policies with the goals of the Paris climate agreement – especially fossil fuel exports like LNG. At least 35 insurance companies including AIG, Chubb, and Liberty Mutual are among the biggest insurers of LNG exports in the US.
That’s why we’re participating in the first ever Insure Our Future Global Week of Action to hold the insurance industry accountable for its role in the climate crisis. Nearly 60 actions are already planned in 27 different countries across 5 continents. Check out the map below and click on an event near you to take action!
No event in your area? No problem. You can plan your own event (click here for an action pack to help get you started), or sign & share our message to the insurers of the Rio Grande LNG export terminal. There will be lots more digital actions next week, and if you take action now we’ll send you updates, and social media news you can use and share.
Why insurers, why now, and what’s been happening?
Like we said up top, there are three things fossil fuel projects need to operate: permits, money, and insurance. So let’s tick through the list of how things are going:
We scored an important, partial, victory to stop fossil fuel permits with the pause on LNG export licenses. And we’re pressing our advantage by planning more and escalated actions at FERC this spring. Lots more to do and say on this in the weeks ahead, but for the moment we’re making progress, and on the offensive to block new permits for fossil fuels – especially fossil fuel exports like LNG.
We’ve likewise been campaigning to stop the Big Banks that invest money in fossil fuels for years. Those banks were a major target of our week of action in New York City last September, and before that at the 3.21.23 actions last spring. But the recent news from the banking and investment sector is not been good: Big banks and fund managers are pulling out of their climate commitments or bowing to pressure from fossil fueled fascist leaders. News coverage of that backsliding has been weak, to say the least. And even blue-state fund managers refusing to vote their shares of align their investments with their state’s own climate goals. So we, and the rest of the fossil free finance movement, are planning a major wave of escalation this summer, stay tuned on that.
Which brings us t the third thing every fossil fuel project needs: Insurance.
Y’all know the basics already – Climate change threatens the life of everyone and everything on earth, and this existential crisis is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Every world leader, and every major corporation in the world, has already promised to reduce emissions and stop the climate from warming more than 1.5-2 degrees celsius this century. Most countries and corporations have pledged to get to “net zero” emissions by 2050, but absolutely none of them are acting fast enough, or cutting emissions enough, to make that possible.
The insurance industry is both a big part of the problem, and potentially a big part of the solution. They’re already facing huge losses due to climate-fueled extreme weather — a total of $123 billion in 2023. Insurers are trying to claw some money back by hiking the rates and premiums for ordinary families or canceling coverage to communities most at risk of wildfires and floods. But polluters are the ones most responsible for extreme weather events, and they should pay the bill, not the communities impacted!
Take the specific example of the Rio Grande LNG export terminal, which we told you about a few weeks ago: Rio Grande is another LNG export terminal proposed in Brownsville Texas, near the US-Mexico border. It has already received a lot of the permits from the Biden administration — so it’s not covered by the LNG export pause, for example — and it has ample investment from big banks. But our friends at Rainforest Action Network dug into the investment info and found that their insurance certificate is up for renewal in March.
Get it? Even though they’ve already got permits and investment, if they lose their insurance, Rio Grande is the next big LNG export project we can block. More than 340,000 letters have been send to Rio Grande’s insurers — Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Sompo — already. And next week, we’re delivering those messages and comments in person. Including at a Boston event in front of the Liberty Mutual global HQ, join us! Click here to send a letter (or send another one) to Rio Grande LNG’s insurers and we’ll follow up with news from the events next week, and more ways to take action online!
And it’s not just Rio Grande or just LNG exports. Insurers have a unique power to stop dirty new fossil projects going ahead, and instead make possible the safe, clean energy we need. That’s what our global week of action is about: We need them to insure our future, not fossil fuels. Together we can protect our communities and resist fossil fuels.
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We need to find better ways to fuel cars.
Stop fossil fuels and start building more solar energy!
INSURE OUR FUTURE, NOT FOSSILS.
Climate change is real and threatens all life on earth and is happening faster than first believed.
Stop using fossil fuels.
TIME TO SHUT DOWN THE PERMITTING PIPELINE. This planet can NOT take anymore.
Fossil fuels are choking the life out of our environment.
Please – for the sake of all life on Earth, please do the right thing.
we need to address climate change because its destroying us and sooner the better please address this
It’s time we stop financing and insuring fossil fuel. We need to stop the use of fossil fuels to save planet earth the only planet society can survive on. Let’s now think about human survival instead of shareholders profits
There is NO MORE AWAY. Stop the Fossil Foolishness!
We need to act on the environment immediately, because I am not going to let any of our species go extinct whether if it’s plants or animals and polluters must pay the damage they’ve caused and put into community service to clean up a lot of mess they made. Climate deniers must never be in the White House, the Senate, or the Supreme Court, and never in the EPA, because climate deniers are a bunch of liars.
TIME TO SHUT DOWN THE PERMITTING PIPELINE. This planet can NOT take anymore.
It is time to bring suit against insurance companies for gross negligence and complicity in destroying human life and inalterably making the planet uninhabitable by insuring the fossil fuel industries who are those primarily responsible, but who cannot operate without the banks and insurance companies.
We have to save the planet, animals, habitats and water. We have to stop with fossil fuels and go to renewable energy.
Things best stop if Mother Earth will let you continue to live …. I saw a movie when I was real young, heard them say, “ HOMOSAPIENS ARE GONNA KILL MAN “ …….
Republicans are so desperate to to keep fossil fuels & gas vehicles, the Heritage Foundation are showing up & speaking at
College environmental conferences saying that the left & environmentalists are trying to hurt lower income people by pushing Electric Vehicles going forward in the future. Talk about spewing false information! Telling us that scientists are giving fake information on the planet warming and Biden is being a dictator by pushing Clean energy! we couldn’t believe the bullshit they were saying & trying not to be rude by telling them they were full of shit, we were all laughing at their BS.
We must change our ways now or we’ll destroy the planet
Fossil fuels are mostly responsible for the climate crisis.
We need actions now stop fossil fuels that we know is endangering humans, the environment and our planet. Politicians have to stop pampering to the fossil fuel industry.
Wake Up!
Climate change is over the top real. All over the world severe weather occurances are regular and devastation. Fossil fuels are deteriorating this planet.
We must protect the environment for future generations
We ought to have acted to shut down fossil a decade ago. Now we are in big trouble. Our only option now is to mitigate the pollution and the choking to death in the offing by drastic measures. But big insurers keep supporting fossil fuel extraction and transport (another source of pollution AND danger.)
Taking on insurers is a wise…. but difficult nut to crack. This needs to reach the thinking & concerned public. Strength to you.
Life over profit.
Climate change is extremely important to me.
No other issue takes greater precedence over climate change. If we do not have a habitable planet, we have failed as a civilization. Stop the empty pledges. Stop the reliance on obsolete energy sources. Stop fossil fuel production now!
We have the technology to run our autos, heat and air condition our homes and factories and change our economy to clean energy sources. Why do we continue to burn fossil fuels and destroy the planet?
If we let fossil fuel destroy our ecological system,it will damage the earth enough to cause species extinsion. Humans are a species,with the capability to become extinct. Why is that so hard to understand? All the cash credit etc , won’t buy clean water if it doesn’t exist!!
for the sake of human survival and that of your own children STOP funding LNG!!!!
Protect ou planet! No harmful fossil fuel projects!
Please help us ease away from fossil fuels for the sake of your grandchildren as well as mine not to mention the planet as a whole!
Our planet is severely dying fast
So if i understand correctly the insurance companies that insure petroleum extraction & refining are the same insurance companies that are now denying homeowners homeowner insurance because they live in places that are now feeling the direct impact of the climate disaster we’ve created?
We must stop using fossil fuels and we must move to clean renewable energy sources and storage immediately.
Courage.
Climate change threatens the life of everyone and everything on earth, and this existential crisis is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Every world leader, and every major corporation in the world has already promised to reduce emissions and stop the climate from warming more than 1.5-2 degrees celsius this century. Most countries and corporations have pledged to get to “net zero” emissions by 2050, but absolutely none of them are acting fast enough, or cutting emissions enough, to make that possible