Governor hits back at Nigel Lawson’s description of research into effects of global warming on insurance industry as ‘green claptrap’
Climate change is one of the biggest risks facing the insurance industry, the governor of the Bank of England has said after a former Conservative chancellor dismissed a study on global warming as “green claptrap”.
Speaking at the House of Lords, Mark Carney mounted a robust defence of the Bank’s work on the impact of climate change on the insurance industry in the face of claims by Nigel Lawson that it had its priorities wrong.
Lawson, who has claimed “there is no global warming to speak of going on at the moment”, a view that puts him outside the overwhelming scientific consensus, attacked the bank for “focusing on green claptrap” rather than the remaining problems in the UK’s financial sector.
Lawson was referring to a recent speech by Paul Fisher, a senior policymaker at the Bank, who warned insurers they could take a “huge hit” by investing in fossil fuels, which could collapse in value if action is taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions in line with scientific advice. Fisher is deputy head of the Bank’s Prudential Regulation Authority, which supervises insurers and banks with the aim of ensuring financial stability.
The Bank has recently surveyed the insurance industry on its fossil fuel investments, as it investigates the risk of an economic crash if action on climate change renders oil and gas assets worthless. The contribution from Threadneedle Street is expected to be published after the election by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of a bigger report on the impact of climate change.
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