14th Meeting of Climate & Catastrophic Events Working Party

The fourteenth meeting took place on Thursday 3 November 2016 at Le Meridien Vienna, Opernring 13, Vienna 1010, Austria between the hours of 10:00hrs and 12:00hrs during the two-day VIth AIDA Europe Conference (3-4 November 2016) which took the theme of “Flood of Change: Insurance in Times of Change - Technology, Climate, Regulation”.

The Agenda of that meeting was concerned with, “Current legal, insurance and environmental challenges in adapting to Climate Change” and which was chaired by Tim Hardy (UK).

The following presentations were delivered at the meeting and may be accessed here:

Update on the aftermath of VW Dieselgate:

European Union Law Developments on Control of Polluting Emissions in the Aftermath of Dieselgate - Prof Marco Frigessi di Rattalma, University of Brescia (Italy)

Dieselgate and D&O Implications - Dr Adolfo Paolini, University of Buckingham/DAC Beachcrofts LLP (UK)

Climate Change, Insurance & the Law: How and where can insurance and the law most effectively assist or secure “Climate Justice”? - Michael Parker, Parker Cowan Lawyers, Queenstown (NZ)

An Update on the Aftermath of the Fundao Dam Disaster and Legal Perspective upon Environmental Insurance in Brazil - Pery Saraiva Neto (Brazil)

The Report of the role of technology in the regulation of Climate Change mitigation and adaptation prepared for the meeting by the MERCOSUR Group was also tabled.

A copy of the Minutes of the meeting is below. A list of registering attendees and those providing formal apologies is also listed below.

On Friday 4 November 2016 as part of the Conference plenary programme a further 75 minute session was devoted to the topic of “Climate Change: Insurance in Times of Climate Change”, chaired by Chris Rodd (Australia)of the CCWP. Rich Traub (US) spoke about the most critical questions being posed about risk and liability issues and the response of insurers; Dr Caroline Bell (UK) reported on developments in response to exacerbated flooding and large-scale losses over recent years and more particularly the creation in the UK of the government-backed coverage vehicle, Flood Re; and Joachim Krane (Germany) considered further issues and developments in the unfolding of the VW Dieselgate story and the implications for board rooms, insurers and manufacturers among others.