The global campaign is targeting Liberty Mutual and remaining insurers of the tar sands pipeline that runs from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, BC, crossing dozens of Indigenous territories without consent. The Trans Mountain pipeline was constructed in 1953, when Indigenous people were forbidden to hire lawyers or or bring about land claims against the government without the government's consent.
German insurer Talanx will no longer back Canada’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline, while Munich Re also signaled it will also drop the project after unveiling a new oil sands policy earlier this year.
Subsidiaries of both companies were named on Trans Mountain’s current Certificate of Insurance, which lists 11 companies providing $508 million of liability insurance for the 12 months to August 31, 2020. Talanx said that it pulled out of the project in 2019 and the current insurance certificate wrongly named its subsidiary HDI Global SE as providing $85 million of cover jointly with other insurers. Talanx adopted a policy limiting tar sands underwriting in 2020.
Munich Re said it would review its support for Trans Mountain in the light of its new policy on tar sands, adopted in 2020, which rules out insuring tar sands extraction projects and dedicated tar sands infrastructure, such as pipelines. Its Canadian subsidiary Temple Insurance was Trans Mountain’s third biggest insurers, providing $250 million of cover, alongside other insurers.
“Trans Mountain put in the existing line without the consent of impacted First Nations and we have said no countless times to the proposed expansion. As Indigenous peoples we are stewards of our lands and waters. We have jurisdiction over activities that happen in our territories, and we don’t want them ruined by oil spills,” said Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, Secretary-Treasurer of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs and Chief of the Neskonlith Indian Band. “We will continue to advocate against the insurers that continue to back the Trans Mountain pipeline and its expansion and call on all insurance companies to adopt policies stopping fossil fuel expansion.”
“Those insurers extending their policies beyond coal do understand they need to be in for a penny, in for a pound on climate action,” said Regine Richter, Energy Campaigner at urgewald. “Now Munich Re must show that they are serious about their policy and quit underwriting the Trans Mountain pipeline when the contract is up for renewal.”
The existing Trans Mountain pipeline is a major environmental and public health hazard with a long history of disastrous spills. Earlier this month, 50,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a pump station located above an aquifer that supplies the Sumas First Nation with drinking water. The Trans Mountain Expansion Project would multiply these risks tremendously.
Sven Biggs, Canadian Oil and Gas Programs Director at Stand.earth, said: “Talanx and Munich Re are joining some of the world’s largest financial institutions in steering clear of the oil sands sector. Trans Mountain is one of most controversial energy projects in Canada’s history, which is why a mounting list of insurers refuse to back the project.”
A global coalition of climate organizations, First Nations, and grassroots activists recently launched a campaign calling on the insurers of Trans Mountain to rule out backing the project when current policies expire on August 31, 2020. These statements from HDI and Munich Re will put pressure on Zurich, Liberty Mutual, Lloyd’s, and the six other insurers that have not yet commented on the project. European insurers Lloyd’s, Zurich, and Chubb’s European Group, are Trans Mountain’s biggest backers.
“With their new tar sands policies, Talanx and Munich Re recognize the major threats that Trans Mountain and the entire tar sands sector pose to Indigenous land rights, sacred waterways, and a safe climate future. The insurance industry is no longer tolerating these risks. In the US, pressure is mounting on Liberty Mutual to drop Trans Mountain and exit the destructive industry entirely,” said Elana Sulakshana, Energy Finance Campaigner at Rainforest Action Network.
The Trans Mountain expansion is a litmus test for insurers’ commitments to the Paris Agreement which aims to limit global warming as close to 1.5ºC as possible. Dr Kirsten Zickfeld, lead author of the IPCC’s report Global Warming of 1.5ºC, has said Trans Mountain and other expansion of the oil industry and its infrastructure is not compatible with this target.
The global Insure Our Future campaign (formerly known as Unfriend Coal) has expanded the focus of its campaign to include all fossil fuels. It released a new set of demands last week, calling on insurers to stop supporting all new oil and gas projects and phase out fossil fuel business in line with 1.5ºC.
To date, eight global insurers have adopted policies that limit or end insurance coverage for tar sands, citing concerns about the high-carbon intensity of the sector: AXA, AXIS Capital, Generali, The Hartford, Munich Re, Swiss Re, Talanx, and Zurich. These insurers join a growing movement of investors and banks that are shifting capital out of tar sands.
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Please accept our email correspondence into your official record. The 2019-2020 certificate of insurance for the Canadian Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline names your company, Chubb Insurers, as a provider of insurance coverage from August 2019 through August 2020. We urge Chubb Insurers to NOT renew insurance coverage of the TMX pipeline when it comes to term in August 2020.
The Trans Mountain’s pipeline project is a devastating fossil fuel pipeline that we, as Canadians who care about the environment, have opposed since its inception, as it will actually accelerate carbon emissions into the Earth’s atmosphere, something Canada has promised to reduce when it signed the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016.
We support any renewable energy initiative that would help Canada transition to a carbon-free economy in the 21st Century and would urge the business community to lead this transition to a carbon-free economy.
Like our US neighbours to the south, who are transitioning away from fossil fuel use and production by closing down coal mines and decrepit oil rigs, we believe Canadians are doing our part to tackle climate change—the TMX pipeline is a destructive fossil fuel project that must be opposed by citizens the world over— if we are serious about reducing climate changing Green-House Gases (GHG) emissions from burning fossil fuels.
That’s why we are writing to urge Chubb Insurers to publicly rule out renewing Trans Mountain’s pipeline insurance for another term.
We have read that Chubb’s Corporate Environmental Program is divesting from coal. specifically, that Chubb will no longer accept underwriting risk for companies or make new investments in debt for companies where more than 30 percent of the exposure arises from the extraction and/or production of energy from coal. Your commitment to sustainability, by reducing your carbon portfolio, is to be commended as your actions are forcing coal mines to shutter around the world.
Of note, one of the primary objectives of Chubb’s Corporate Environmental Program is to reduce GHG emissions when it announced a 20% GHG emissions reduction by 2025, with a long-term goal of a 40% reduction of absolute GHG emissions by 2035. In Chubb’s Corporate Greenhouse Gas Inventory Management and Reduction Plan, Chubb deployed natural renewable energy as its main source of energy for its real estate portfolio in a mix that consisted of 50% wind, 40% solar and 10% hydro (water). Chubb’s GHG emissions reductions were significant—a reduction of 2,795 tons of CO2e through the avoidance of fossil-fuel based energy consumption.
Read: https://www.chubb.com/_global-assets/documents/2019-chubb-environmental-report—11-15.pdf
But we would ask that you advance your Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) agenda even further by adopting a sustainability code regarding the Alberta tar sands that prevents Chubb Insurers from underwriting the Trans Mountain pipeline. As you may be aware, Zurich Insurers recently adopted this underwriting measure and divested its TMX pipeline portfolio, dropping its coverage of the TMX pipeline. In doing so, the Swiss insurer re-committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Global Compact Business Ambition Pledge (of which Chubb is a member) that aims to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C. Read: https://www.zurich.com/en/about-us/offices/quai-zurich
Additionally, Canadians know Chubb is serious about sustainability — setting an example as a global insurer that takes climate change seriously. In a recent address to shareholders, Chubb CEO and President Evan G. Greenberg spelled out the effects of climate change on the planet,
“Climate change is a reality and its effects can be seen by an increased frequency and severity of natural catastrophes. Climate change is contributing to higher sea surface temperatures, rising sea levels and an increasing trend in extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, winter storms, heat waves, wildfires and hurricane intensity….Given the long–term threat and the short–term nature of politics, the failure of policymakers to address climate change, including these issues and the costs of living in or near high–risk areas, is an existential threat." Read: https://www.chubb.com/_global-assets/documents/2019-chubb-environmental-report—11-15.pdf
Citing the existential threat of the TMX oil pipeline through their community, the City of Vancouver and the Squamish Nation, successfully appealed TMX’s Environmental Assessment Certificate to the B.C. Court of Appeal which instructed the province to reconsider its TMX’s environmental assessment based on its flawed environmental report and approval from the Canadian National Energy Board. “The City [of Vancouver] remains of the view that the Trans Mountain Pipeline project would have significant environmental impacts, including the unacceptable risk of oil spills and increased greenhouse gas emissions related to the project at a time when the world needs to reduce emissions,” a spokesperson wrote. Read: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/court-of-appeal-tells-b-c-to-reconsider-trans-mountain-environmental-conditions-1.5286909#:~:text=%22The%20City%20remains%20of%20the,emissions%2C%22%20a%20spokesperson%20wrote
We applaud Chubb’s progressive stance on reducing it’s fossil fuel emissions and ultimately, its carbon footprint—many large and small companies are divesting from fossil fuel production (and use) because it is threatening human (and non-human existence) on this planet due to rising global temperatures. Investing in renewable energy projects that are now more affordable and prolific than coal, oil and gas is the best way toward a sustainable future—and Canada can get there if we can lessen our own dependence on fossil fuel production (and use). But it takes a global effort to transition away from a carbon-based energy system Canadians have been dependent on for centuries.
In a climate emergency, with rising sea levels, disastrous floods, and scorched-earth forest fires destroying communities around the world, we cannot waste anymore time supporting business-as-usual fossil fuel projects like Tar Sands pipelines. Even Saudi Arabia, an oil-producing nation, is making the transition to renewable energy by building massive solar energy complexes in the desert.
Canadians en masse want to be part of this renewable energy revolution by rejecting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. We request that Chubb Insurers continue to enhance its ESG initiatives by transitioning away from petroleum investments by rejecting the Trans Mountain pipeline’s insurance renewal this term. In fact, Chubb’s partnerships with “clean tech” providers like Cleantech Forum San Francisco, Colorado Cleantech Industries Association, Cleantech San Diego, Sustain OC and Greentown Labs, Boston and the Nature Conservancy- commits your company to a long-term strategy of decarbonization and investment in renewable energy.
Chubb continues to make sustainability and preservation a high priority, by integrating environmentalism into essential aspects of its business practices. In 2019, Chubb earned a score of “B” on the CDP’s climate change program ranking. Chubb is well positioned to receive an “A” on its scorecard by leading sustainability initiatives that, like its rejection of coal, terminates its TMX petroleum portfolio, and redoubles its underwriting of sustainable investments in “clean tech” like solar, wind, hydrogen, geothermal, kinetic and ocean energy while refocusing Chubb’s commitment to energy conservation. It will truly be a day Chubb employees (including its Canadian contingent) will celebrate when your investments in fossil fuels have declined by 100% in the 21st Century and are replaced and underwritten by 100% renewable energies that will inevitably save our planet from catastrophic climate change.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter and we await your response.
Sincerely,
Davis & Rhonda Costas-Mirza
Toronto, CANADA
Dated: 25/07/2020