Climate campaigners are seeking to block a major expansion of hydrocarbon infrastructure in some of the world’s most populous countries by making it harder for the projects to get insurance.
A letter signed by roughly 70 advocacy groups demands that major insurers and reinsurers withhold insurance and investments in planned oil and gas expansions by a group of island countries in Southeast Asia including Indonesia and the Philippines.
The projects would exacerbate climate change, the groups said, and also expose the insurers to financial risk and social backlash due to their impacts in the ecologically sensitive marine region.
Southeast Asian countries are scrambling to expand energy supplies to meet demand from growing populations and economies. Renewable energy is growing rapidly, but governments are also considering expanding hydrocarbon production and building infrastructure to import natural gas by ship and burn it for electricity.
