8th Meeting of Climate & Catastrophic Events Working Party

The eighth meeting of the Working Party took place on Monday 29 September 2014 between the hours of 16:00hrs and 18:00hrs at the European University of Rome as part of the XIVth AIDA World Congress.  It was the best attended of any of the Climate Change Working Party meetings held to date with representatives attending from over 30 countries.   

The Agenda for that meeting chaired by Tim Hardy (UK) is below.

In the event the topic of Flooding was deferred for fuller discussion at our next meeting.

Presentations were delivered upon two topics, each made the subject of CCWP questionnaires delivered before the Meeting and which may be opened and downloaded here - Fracking and Agricultural Insurances/Food Security. 

Prior to the meeting responses were received from the US, Australia and the UK in respect of fracking and from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay re agricultural insurances, with notes, reports and promises of detailed answers to follow from several other countries.

Information supplied was drawn upon and helped inform the following presentations delivered at the meeting (where presentations are not yet loaded these will be posted very shortly):  

• Fracking: Particular legal and coverage problems presented by the extraction of shale oil and gas - Tim Hardy, AIDA CCWP Chair, UK.
• Fracking: Universal key issues in pollution damage insurance coverage : Birgit Kuschke, Associate Professor, Dept of Private Law, Univ of Pretoria, South Africa 
• Fracking: The case of Warren Drilling  v ACE American Insurance (2012) and lessons from the US experience to date: Rich Traub, Partner,Traub, Lieberman Strauss & Shrewsberry LLP, United States
• Agricultural Insurance against Food Demand: Perspective from Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay)  - Dr Maria Kavanagh, Argentina
• Agricultural Insurances - Coping with the threats to food production- Chris Rodd, CGU Insurance and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
• Agricultural Insurances and Colombian government current policy -  Hilda Esperanza Zornosa Prieto, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Colombia 

In addition to a short final oral intervention received from Dr Rossana Bril, Estudio Bril, Argentina a number of papers and reports were provided in advance of the meeting in addition to the questionnaire answers described above, which will be posted or reported upon more fully in due course and which included:

• Agricultural Insurance against Food Demand: Perspective from Mercosur countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Uruguay) - MERCOSUR GROUP: Dr Maria Kavanagh, Argentina (Co-ordinator); Pery Saraiva Neto and Ana Rita Petraroli, Brazil; Ricardo Peralta Larrain, Chile; Miryam Aragon Espejo, Peru and Andrea Signorino Barbat and Roxana Corbran, Uruguay, with help from further external contributors.

A copy of the Minutes of the meeting is below.