Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

EU needs more proactive climate change adaptation plans: Insurers

Reprints
climate

(Reuters) — The European Union’s strategy to adapt to the risks of climate change needs to be much more proactive and ambitious in order to reduce the risk of natural disasters such as flooding, insurers said in response to a consultation on the issue.

The European Commission is asking for thoughts on the EU’s current strategy to adapt to climate change, set out in 2013, and what, if any, changes need to be made to it.

Industry trade body Insurance Europe said the EU strategy needs to shift to more preventive behavior.

“This should include enforcement of risk-averse policies, such as building codes, flood defenses and avoidance of construction in high-risk zones,” Insurance Europe said.

The EU’s original 2013 strategy was useful, but it did not sufficiently address the future impact of climate change and did not put enough emphasis on the ‘pre-disaster’ phase, the trade body said.

With extreme weather events already becoming more frequent and severe, mitigating the economic, social and environmental impact of a changing climate was not enough and more focus was needed on adaptation, the group said.

Specifically, it called for the release of high-quality data on adaptation measures and for the EU to explore the use of public-private partnerships to ensure often costly adaptation measures were approved.

The EU also needed to improve the ability of insurers to play their part by coordinating with governments to make sure adaptation measures were enforced across the region, the group said.

 

 

 

 

Read Next