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Is the world becoming uninsurable?

(charleshughsmith.substack.com)
478 points spking | 3 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.941s | source
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phtrivier ◴[17 Jan 25 08:26 UTC] No.42735258[source]▶
Former CEO of AXA, a major French insurer, famously announced that a world at +4°C would be "uninsurrable" [1].

That was 10 years ago.

It's true that most predictions about climate are wrong - most of the time, they're optimistic. (Not always, fortunately [2])

[1] https://www.leparisien.fr/economie/business/special-cop21-un...

[2] https://www.theclimatebrink.com/p/emissions-are-no-longer-fo...

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igravious ◴[17 Jan 25 09:28 UTC] No.42735675[source]▶
+4°C is to the upper end of projections

if it did (which is not probable) happen it'd take until the end of the century

if we were to get there the entire world will be a different place; everything will have advanced so we won't be insuring our present world with our current knowledge and current tech but a future world with future knowledge and future tech

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1. omgwtfbyobbq ◴[17 Jan 25 10:07 UTC] No.42735919[source]▶
Not everything advances. We still have houses built in the 1800s/1900s that are usable in predictable/similar climates/circumstances. A changing climate changes that.

Sure, we could bulldoze everything and build new stuff that can handle a +2C, +3C, +4C, etc... world, but that's expensive.

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2. lm28469 ◴[17 Jan 25 10:22 UTC] No.42736021[source]▶
There are 2b+ people living in "inadequate housing", don't have sewers, don't have running water right now, we can't even fix the problem now, we're not going to fix it better when 2b more need AC to survive every summer

https://unhabitat.org/news/13-jul-2023/the-world-is-failing-...

3. 9dev ◴[17 Jan 25 10:43 UTC] No.42736149[source]▶
It's not just expensive. Steel and concrete are some of the largest drivers of CO2 emissions and toxic waste, in the ballpark of 15%! So really the only sane choice is to avoid building new homes whenever possible and try to keep old houses in use as long as possible.