A new insurance package has been unveiled at the COP23 meeting in Bonn aiming to provide insurance to hundreds of millions of vulnerable people by 2020 and to increase the resilience of developing countries to the impacts of climate change.
Photo: Facebook/ Fiji Government
In 2017, extreme weather events are estimated to have caused more than $US200 billion worth of damage worldwide, as hurricanes, droughts and rising sea levels devastated vulnerable communities with increased frequency and intensity.
PACNEWS reported that in the face of skyrocketing costs, new forms of financial protection have become an increasingly urgent part of the climate change discussion.
The InsuResilience Global Partnership is a major scaling-up of an initiative started by the G7 in 2015 under the German Presidency.
It aims at providing cover and support to an extra 400 million vulnerable people by 2020.
The Global Partnership now brings together G20 countries in partnership with the so called 'V20' nations, a group of 49 of the most vulnerable countries including small islands like Fiji, which holds the presidency of COP23.
Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama said it was a practical response to the needs of the climate change victims.