Finance giant Allianz wants G8 climate change move

Allianz Group, one of the world's largest financial conglomerates, called today for Group of Eight leaders to come up with a clearer policy on climate change so business can adapt to a global threat.

It said industry needed long-term goals for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Ahead of a G8 meeting in Scotland next week, the German insurance, banking and investment giant underlined its concerns by saying it would screen all its businesses for risks linked to rising atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (CO2).

It said the issue of global warming would in future be dealt with at board level.

"We will address the issue of climate change with other major risks that we need to manage within our company," Joachim Faber, a board member and chief executive officer of Allianz's investment arm, told a news conference.

Faber told Reuters separately that the company was lobbying on the issue in both Washington and Brussels.

He was speaking at the launch of a report written jointly with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in which the two said that the risks of climate change, blamed on high CO2 emissions, were real and were imposing heavy risks to business.

"Temperatures have already risen. Temperatures are going to rise further," WWF UK chief executive Robert Napier said.

Allianz and WWF said the leaders of the United States, Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, Japan and Russia -- meeting at Gleneagles on July 6-8 -- needed to act.

It said in its report that financial services providers should "call for a reliable, transparent and internationally co-ordinated policy framework...."

They also needed "long-term and appropriate CO2-reduction goals that provide certainty for investment decisions and initiate business opportunities for clients".

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, hosting the G8 event, wants to step up the fight against climate change but faces scepticism from US President George W. Bush's administration, which disputes the scientific basis for global warming.

Faber said Allianz hoped business and economic forces in the United States would push the White House to adopt what he called "a more reasonable attitude".

Underlining Allianz's concerns, the report issued a series of recommendations for various businesses within the financial services sector to avoid climate change risk and support lower emissions.

It said for example that insurers, already hit by a series of weather-related catastrophes, needed to develop risk assessment tools to control their exposure to natural disasters.

They should also work with industrial clients to develop insurance products supportive of low-carbon technology.

Banks needed, among other things, to facilitate finance for public programmes fostering low-carbon technologies.

Investment companies, meanwhile, should evaluate client portfolios for climate-change risk and help management of companies they invest in to understand the impact of climate change on their businesses.

Allianz is Europe's second-largest insurer by market capitalisation and its investment arm Allianz Global Investors manages more than US$1 trillion ($1.44 trillion) in investments.

- REUTERS