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For Immediate Release:
HARVARD MEDICAL, INSURANCE EXPERTS TELL MEMBERS
OF CONGRESS THAT PUBLIC HEALTH, INSURANCE RISKS OF
GLOBAL WARMING “ARE HERE ALREADY”
WASHINGTON, D.C. June 18, 2003 Far from being a hypothetical
concern for future generations, global warming already is a front-burner
issue in the public health and financial sectors (particularly
the insurance industry), according to a briefing delivered today
on Capitol Hill by experts from the Harvard Medical School and
Swiss Re. The pair told U.S. House and Senate members that new “outbreaks” of
health problems, including asthma and West Nile Virus, and a palpable
danger of added insurance risks and costs mean that climate-change
issues must be addressed now.
Dr. Paul R. Epstein, M.D., associate director, Center for Health
and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said: “Concerns
about climate change are often mistakenly placed into the distant
future. But as the rate of climate change increases, so do the
biological responses and costs associated with warming and unstable
weather. The influence of intensifying droughts on the spread of
West Nile virus in the U.S. and the impacts of rising carbon dioxide
(CO2) levels on allergies and asthma demonstrate that global warming
has come into our backyards …”
Dr. Epstein also told the members of Congress: “The intense
weather extremes associated with warming of the atmosphere and
oceans create conditions favorable to ‘clusters’ of
disease outbreaks. Large outbreaks of West Nile virus (WNV) in
the U.S. and Europe are associated with drought, and prolonged
droughts have become more frequent with global warming. WNV affects
humans directly and the impacts on wildlife have long term implications
for the global emergence and resurgence of infectious diseases.”
“Today, climate change as a financial issue is very much
underestimated from the point of view of the insurance and reinsurance
industry’s potentially rising costs and risks,” said
Christopher T. Walker, managing director, Greenhouse Gas Risk Solutions,
Financial Services Business Group, Swiss Re. “Carbon is becoming
a tradable commodity, allowing companies to hedge their risks,
profit from emissions assets and turn this new discipline into
a competitive advantage.”
Walker added: “So, in additional to potential liabilities
for corporations from greenhouse gas emissions reductions, there
also are business opportunities where the financial industry and,
in particular, the insurance industry can be the prime mover of
emissions reduction activities. The reality here is simple: insurance
and reinsurance companies have the potential to become prime catalysts
for the development of renewables, emission reduction and energy-efficient
technologies for two reasons: such steps will reduce risks and
open up new and lucrative lines of business activity.”
The Capitol Hill sponsors of the Harvard Medical School/Swiss
Re briefing were: Senator James M. Jeffords (I-VT), Congressman
Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Congressman John Olver (D-MA), Congresswoman
Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD).
Dr. Paul R. Epstein, MPH, is associate director of the Center
for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School
(http://www.med.harvard.edu/chge), and is a medical doctor trained
in tropical public health. Dr. Epstein has worked in medical, teaching
and research capacities in Africa, Asia and Latin America and,
in 1993, coordinated an eight-part series on Health and Climate
Change for the British medical journal, Lancet. He has worked with
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National
Academy of Sciences, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
to assess the health impacts of climate change and develop health
applications of climate forecasting and remote sensing.
Christopher T. Walker is an attorney and the managing director
of Swiss Re's Greenhouse Gas Risk Solutions. There, he has developed
risk finance/transfer solutions to facilitate the use of the market
mechanisms and established the Competence for GHG technical expertise
and issue training/education. Mr. Walker organized and conducted
a series of well attended and highly acclaimed "Reducing Greenhouse
Gas Emissions" conferences at Rüschlikon, Switzerland
in October 2001 and 2002 and New York in July 2002. He is a member
of the advisory board for the Center for Economic and Environmental
Partnership, Inc. (CEEP) - Energy Performance Project (EP2), member
of the Connecticut Climate Change Stakeholder Dialogue for Governor
Rowland's Climate Change Steering Committee, corporate representative
for the World Resource Institute’s Safe Climate, Sound Business
Solutions in the Northeast, the Emissions Marketing Association
and various environmental NGOs. Mr. Walker received his BA in Government
from St. John's University, and is also a graduate of the St. John's
School of Law.
The Center for Health and the Global Environment (http://www.chge.med.harvard.edu/)
at the Harvard Medical School was founded in 1996 at Harvard Medical
School to expand environmental education at medical schools and
to further investigate and promote awareness of the human health
consequences of global environmental change. The Center administers
a course at Harvard Medical School entitled "Human Health
and Global Environmental Change." The course is taught by
scientific experts from around the world and is open to the public
as well as students from Harvard Medical School, Harvard School
of Public Health, and other university students in the Boston area.
The course has also been taught at 23 medical schools in the U.S.
(cover 18 percent of all U.S. medical students) and three international
medical schools via videotape and online videos. The Center publishes
an online publication entitled The Quarterly Review. An edition
of The Review, The Congressional Review, is distributed to every
member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate by Congressman
Sherwood Boehlert and Senator John Kerry. The Center also educates
policy-makers by holding briefings and seminars on human health
and the global environment on Capital Hill.
Greenhouse Gas Risk Solutions (GHGRS) (http://www.swissre.com/emissions)
is the Swiss Re unit charged with developing business opportunities
in the emerging Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction area. GHGRS
consists of four specialists who examine business opportunities
across a wide spectrum of financial service products including
insurance, structured finance, third-party asset management and
investments, as well as the identification of risks to Swiss Re’s
(re)insurance and investment activities. The Swiss Reinsurance
Company was founded in Zurich in December 1863. Swiss Re does business
from over 70 offices in more than 30 countries with over 8,300
employees, providing risk transfer, risk financing and asset management
to its global client base. Today, the Swiss Re Group is one of
the leading and financially strongest reinsurers. In the financial
year 2002, gross premiums written amounted to CHF 32.7 billion.
CONTACT: Stephanie Kendall at (703) 276-3254 or skendall@hastingsgroup.com.
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