African insurers take up climate change fight with $14bn pledge

A group of over 85 insurers in Africa has pledged to create a financing facility to provide $14-billion of cover to help the continent’s most vulnerable communities deal with climate disaster risks such as floods and droughts.

The commitment to create the African Climate Risk Facility (ACRF) was made on Wednesday during the COP27 climate talks comes as developing countries push their richer peers to do more to help them pay for the costs of responding to such events.

Demand for compensation for the “loss and damage” caused by global warming has long been rejected by wealthy countries, whose leaders are wary of accepting liability for the emissions driving climate change.

Africa, which accounts for less than 4% of greenhouse gas emissions, has long been expected to be severely impacted by climate change.

Against that backdrop, the African insurance plan is based around creating a scalable, local market-based funding tool to help countries better