Poznan, Poland - A UN agreement to fight global warming should include financing to help insure countries most at risk from natural disasters attributable to climate change, insurance firms said Monday. Insurers made their appeal during this year's main UN climate conference, where some 190 countries hope to agree on the blueprint for a year of talks meant to produce a global deal by December 2009.
Providing affordable insurance is seen as key to spurring investment in measures to protect high-risk areas, such as low-lying regions threatened by rising sea levels.
Andrew Torrance, chief executive of insurer Allianz UK, urged governments and business to agree on ways to offer such insurance in a "commercially viable manner."
Torrance chairs ClimateWise, an international forum of 42 insurers launched by Britain's Prince Charles last year.
German-based insurer Munich Re says major floods and landslides were 3.5 times more frequent last year than in 1980, while severe storms more than doubled.
A German initiative that includes environmentalists and Munich Re proposed that governments set aside 2 billion dollars a year to minimize climate-linked damage, for instance through hardened buildings or early-warning systems.
Insurance could be financed through the proceeds of international emissions trading or a tax of 20 US cents per ton of emitted carbon dioxide, the main "greenhouse gas" linked to global warming, said Munich Re risk analyst Peter Hoeppe.
