In February 2024 Extinction Rebellion spent three days targeting fossil fuel insurers in the City of London. Shortly after this, major insurers Zurich pulled out of insuring new oil and gas. In late October 2024 XR returned to the City of London for another three themed days.
Insurance is the Achilles heel of the global fossil fuel industry. Fossil fuel projects cannot operate without it. This puts the insurance industry in a uniquely powerful position to have an impact on the future of our world.
The insurers themselves are becoming acutely aware of the irony of their situation: enabling emissions, which are then causing them massive losses through climate catastrophes. Losses which will be passed on to the general population.
DAY ONE: 28th Oct. A day before the floods in Valencia, XR highlighted the causal link between insurers enabling fossil fuel extraction and subsequent flooding.
DAY TWO: 29th Oct. Food crises and wrecked lives. The impacts of floods on biodiversity and food supplies, homes and communities.
Protestors flyposted, then chalk sprayed, the windows of fossil fuel insurer WTW. WTW’s own analysts co-authored a recent report, that warned climate crisis-driven floods and extreme weather have a high likelihood of causing food shortages and social unrest in the UK.
DAY THREE: 30th Oct. What social collapse will look like in the UK in the context of repeated floods and food shortages.
