‘Insure Our Future': A global movement says the insurance industry could be the key to ending fossil fuels

(Inside Climate News, 8 Mar 2024) As insurers cancel policies in regions threatened by sea level rise and wildfires, activists around the world rallied for a week of actions pressuring the companies to drop oil, gas and coal projects driving climate disasters.

Roishetta Ozane would have rather been sitting in a rocking chair at home in Louisiana with her seven-month old grandbaby than standing outside of a multinational insurance company’s office in New York City, surrounded by dozens of police officers, speaking to a rally. 

But she’d traveled to New York City to fight for the future of her new grandchild and six children.

“I came here because decisions being made in this building impact my community miles and miles away,” Ozane said on Feb. 27, to demonstrators outside of the insurance giant AIG’s office in midtown Manhattan.

By continuing to insure fossil fuel projects—including multiple liquified natural gas terminals in the Gulf South—the American International Group and its peers in the insurance industry are ensuring disaster, Ozane said.

“Decisions being made in this building ensure my children’s asthma, ensure my children having chronic diseases, it ensures people in my community having cancer, it ensures my community having disasters like hurricanes,” she said.

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Inside Climate News, 8 Mar 2024: ‘Insure Our Future': A global movement says the insurance industry could be the key to ending fossil fuels