Transcript
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. This is the Red Eye Podcast. You can hear our live broadcast on Saturday mornings from 10 till noon at 100.5 FM in the Lower Mainland.
Speaker: On the podcast today, Andrew Gage from West Coast Environmental Law on rising insurance costs due to climate change and why big oil should pay.
Speaker: The climate crisis is intensifying and is having concrete impacts on our health and security, and now on our cost of living. Insurance premiums in Kamloops almost doubled in two years. And the Insurance Bureau of Canada said natural disaster claims cost a record $8.5 billion dollars in 2024, and they blamed it on the increased frequency and severity of weather-related losses.
Speaker: Now Canada's insurance sector is talking about the potential for the country to become uninsurable in 10 years due to insufficient policy action on escalating climate disasters.
Speaker: SUBIG oil is a project of citizens concerned about the harmful impacts of climate change and the skyrocketing costs for BC's local governments and taxpayers. West Coast Environmental Law is one of their partner organizations. I'm joined now by Andrew Gage, who is a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law. Hello, Andrew.
Speaker: Hi, Lorena. It's good to talk with you again. What do we know about what is driving up insurance rates for homeowners in Canada? Well, we do know that climate change is a huge and a major factor.
Speaker: Insurance tries to predict you know the risk of future events when they set premiums and when you you purchase your insurance. So, of course, if they know that it is as a result of global warming, that we're going to see more extreme storms, more wildfires, more flooding. It's going to be something that the insurance industry takes into account in setting premiums, then in having to pay out when those those disasters do materialize. So it's probably not the only factor, but it's it's a major one. And it's one of the places where you can really see some sort of otherwise invisible costs of climate change that are quite real.
Speaker: What's the impact on the ground for regular folks, people who own houses, but also people who rent or people who run small businesses? So we we were contacted by a renter whose rental insurance premiums went up, and it was ah Toronto Dominion actually sent ah an explanation about why the premiums might be going up and explicitly said, the increased cost of repair and increased the occurrence of severe weather and natural disasters in British Columbia have affected your premium.
Speaker: And they then go on to sort of elaborate on that. But the insurance industry is quite upfront that that's why this this individualist renter was paying more for insurance. And of course, renters actually have less control over what they can do to upgrade their living space. if it's They're subject to the the sort of goodwill of their landlord to make sure that measures are taken that could protect them against increased flooding or other impacts.
Speaker: Homeowners also, I mean, we haven't seen this to the same degree in BC yet, but you've certainly seen in places like California that there are whole areas that just cannot get insurance for wildfires or other types of climate-related risks. And ah Even in BC, although we haven't seen the sort of blanket, as far as I'm aware, of the blanket refusal to insure in large areas of the province, there have been moments where, during wildfire season, where it's impossible for new homeowners to get wildfire insurance until the situation settles down and you know they're able to you know hopefully get insured. But this is getting worse over time. The premiums are going up. The length of time where it's difficult to get insurance is increasing. So...
Speaker: You know, it's a very real cost. It's only one of the many ways in which our cost of living is actually being affected by climate change. But it's one that where people can, I think, make the connection between, oh, yeah, there are more storms. No wonder my insurance premiums are going up.
Speaker: Are there disparities in these costs depending on where you live? For example, if you live in a drought stricken area or near forested lands? Absolutely. you know You mentioned Kamloops, the premiums going up there. um mean that's an area that's had a lot of wildfire challenges. Communities that are right at the interface between forest lands and urban areas are are more at risk.
Speaker: People who live in an area that has a history of flooding, but is now coming more often, obviously their premiums will go up. more often. And in some cases, that actually can really harm the people who are least able to afford it, where there are houses that are located maybe in areas that are have always been a little bit subject to to flooding, but now it's becoming increasingly difficult to get cost-effective insurance.
Speaker: Andrew, who else is facing these rising costs other than insurance companies and the customers that we've been talking about, homeowners and renters and so forth? Insurance costs specifically or climate costs more generally? I would say ah insurance costs, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, so I mean, ah you know obviously, municipal governments either self-insure or like all levels of government either self-insure their infrastructure or have insurance. So this is directly affecting our tax dollars as communities have to spend more to protect themselves. It's also, it's not directly sort of insurance, but I guess one of the ways of ah avoiding future impacts and therefore keeping your insurance premiums to a manageable level is to do more ensure build effective seawalls or put in place measures to protect against flooding. So this is another reason why communities are having to completely upgrade their infrastructure and and rebuild things in light of a new climate that then drives up insurance premiums and the cost for communities.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not sure if that answers your question or not. Yeah, and i'm not I think your clarification of the question asking, is this just insurance, clearly there are more expenses as well.
Speaker: Absolutely. I mean, anything where there's an increased risk or an increased frequency of events creates additional costs for people. like we we tend to think of climate costs and climate impacts as like people actually have to evacuate during a catastrophic flood or wildfire. And we forget the fact that a pattern of drought over a longer period can cause a farmer who's been just hanging on there to to go under and cause the crops that they were raising and growing to to become more expensive in our grocery store, especially where that pattern is repeated among farming communities around the across the country or around the world.
Speaker: So, you know, another area where climate impacts and this this sort of general risk and increase in frequency shows up really vividly is around food prices, especially related to certain types of crops that are more vulnerable than others like coffee or chocolate.
Speaker: So, know, I think It's a mistake to sort of only focus on the really big disasters when we think about climate costs. and the The stuff that's sort of just it so recurring in frequency of just stresses on farmers or crops or communities that have housing needs, the need to ensure that when we build housing to house unhoused people that we're now like not putting people who are unhoused in a situation where they're going to be have to be evacuated immediately due to you know a future flood. We build stuff that can withstand a future disaster and which is insurable because the risks are manageable.
Speaker: you know These things all fit together in terms of the overall challenges that our communities have with climate change, with preparing for climate change, with dealing with the impacts of climate change. So just rippling out it with effect after effect.
Speaker: Yeah, and and I mean, it can be really subtle. I mean, there's studies showing this is not, this is in different fields entirely, but there's lots of studies showing that ah levels of heat well below what we would consider a heat wave affect worker productivity, affect the performance of students in schools, affect us in in really sort of tangible, but pretty much invisible ways.
Speaker: And those are just the ones that have been documented. But as I said, you know, stuff where where we're dealing with risks, like as with the insurance industry, as with preparing for future climate impacts, are are where we can draw the particularly strong links between fossil fuel pollution, climate change, and the costs and harms that our communities experience.
Speaker: Sue Big Oil argues that fossil fuel companies should be the ones who are paying for these disasters. Make that argument for us. Well, I'm not sure we're necessarily saying that fossil fuel companies will end up paying for 100% of these costs. The reality is right now consumers and ordinary Canadians and their our communities for our taxes are paying 100% of these costs.
Speaker: The fossil fuel industry is making record profits selling the products that they knew decades ago would cause these types of harm. ah you know Their scientists told them in the 70s, well, really as early as the 50s and 60s that something was going on in terms of climate change. But certainly by the seventy s and eighty s really detailed models about how our communities would be affected by climate change.
Speaker: And these companies not only did not develop, they had patents on solar technology and low emission vehicles, they didn't develop those. They actually instead invested in misinformation campaigns and lobbying politicians and doing everything they could to delay actual action on climate change.
Speaker: So it's very similar to what we've you know the story we've seen with tobacco and opioids and any number of other things. that you When you have an industry that believes it will make massive profits while someone else pays for the harm that they are causing, they make decisions that put their short-term profits ahead of the safety of the people they're affecting.
Speaker: so And as I say, i mean we are going to we are already paying for the cost of climate change. We will continue to pay for the cost of climate change, but this industry should be paying for some of it. I understand that people have launched a recent class action lawsuit in Washington state. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker: Well, that particular one is is, that there's a lawsuit filed about insurance premiums, about the fact that the, the people affected are less able to get insurance and are paying more for the insurance they're getting. And course this is just across the border for us. so I think, you know, if it's happening there, it's happening here too. And they're claiming that the fossil fuel industry, again, misled the public, worked to undermine pa confidence and in ah climate science. and did everything they could essentially to continue selling their products, knowing that it would have this type of impact.
Speaker: And we wish them well, obviously, but ah we need to start having a similar conversation here about who should be paying for the costs, whether it's for insurance premiums, increased taxes, increased food costs, et cetera.
Speaker: What could a lawsuit that protects Canadians look like? What sort of possible scenarios are there for suing big oil? Yeah, well, the basic legal principle that if a manufacturer sells a product knowing with something approaching certainty that that people's rights are going to be violated as a result, or if they go out of their way to lie about the product and take other steps that are really intended to make sure that that harm will occur or or have the result of making sure that harm will occur, the Canadian law recognizes that those manufacturers may be liable.
Speaker: So this isn't a huge... yeah there's There's a number of challenges with bringing this type of lawsuit to bear in the context of fossil fuels and climate change. But the basic principles, I think, are relatively well established. And what we've proposed is a class action by local governments for for the costs of preparing for climate change and dealing with disasters.
Speaker: And one of the things about a class action lawsuit is that those challenges, those questions of of how this is going to work under Canadian law, there's actually a ruling where a judge confirms whether or not the case has merit, right as of pretty much the first stage of the litigation.
Speaker: ah So that's that's one path. I think there's a lot to be said for local governments or or any level of government that sort of has resources working together to bring these cases. rather than necessarily expecting individual consumers to bring them. They also sort of, government has a special role of being responsible for maintaining infrastructure in a way that doesn't put us at risk. So that makes them well-placed to bring this type of lawsuit.
Speaker: In principle, the basic questions about, you know, is this industry responsible for some of the harm that they knew their products would cause? is is obviously broader.
Speaker: And in in the US, we've seen now dozens of local governments and 11, I believe, state governments suing fossil fuel companies. We've seen similar cases being filed in Germany, Switzerland, France, and elsewhere in the world. So, ah you know, I think it's only a matter of time before we see this type of litigation in Canada.
Speaker: I think the goal is both to get recovery for the victims of climate change so that we're not paying 100% of the costs, but also to get these costs on the balance sheets of these companies so that they can't perpetuate this illusion of appearing to be profitable at the same time as we and others are paying for the costs of their products. So the investors and governments and the the businesses themselves, the companies themselves, consider the full cost of climate change when they make business decisions.
Speaker: And to be clear, we're talking about suing not just Canadian companies, but global fossil fuel companies for their global emissions. And because they've caused harm here in Canada, Canadian courts can hold them responsible here.
Speaker: Well, it's been really good talking with you and catching up on this issue, Andrew. Thank you for having me. I've been speaking with Andrew Gage. Andrew is a lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law. And you can read a blog post that was written by Aaron Ellis talking about this issue at subigoil.ca.
Speaker: dot c a You've been listening to the Red Eye Podcast, produced by an independent media collective based in Vancouver. If you enjoyed this episode, it would be great if you left a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people to find us.
Speaker: Also, please consider sharing this episode with a friend or telling someone about our podcast. To keep up with the show, you can subscribe to Red Eye wherever you listen to your podcasts. And you can follow us on Blue Sky at Red Eye Radio.
Speaker: I'm Jane Williams. Thanks for listening.
