Remarks by Director of Insurance, Seána Cunningham to the UN Environment Programme Global Sustainable Insurance Summit, Dublin

On behalf of the Central Bank of Ireland, I am delighted to welcome you all here to Dublin for the UN Environment Programme Global Sustainable Insurance Summit.

This is a significant week for Dublin and the Irish Presidency of the EU. Not only do we have the annual Climate Finance week, Ireland is also hosting the Eurofi conference, and the informal ECOFIN conference of EU finance ministers. It is great to see so many people converge on Dublin, with Global Sustainable Insurance at the heart of the discussions.

One of the most pressing risks we face today is climate change. The physical risks reshaping our climate are not distant concerns, they are present-day challenges demanding urgent action from regulators, insurers, and policymakers alike.

In Ireland, like most countries, we are seeing the impacts of climate change.  Last year, we experienced the most expensive storm-related insurance event in Irish history.  Storm Éowyn was an exceptionally powerful storm which caused significant damage, resulting in insurance claims totalling approximately €300 million.

In her State of the Union Address yesterday, President von der Leyen, in speaking to climate change, referred to this summer as “the summer of truth”, noting that almost no part of our continent was spared.

Climate extremes are putting a strain on the financial, societal and ecological systems that we rely on.  

A recent UN report concluded that we will hit at least 1.8 degrees of warming, and that there are “no good outcomes above 1.5 degrees1”. The urgency is real.

In the Central Bank we are led by evidence, and we follow risks. The risks from climate change are not going away, and will only increase with delay. We are not yet on a sustainable trajectory, and we can see loss of momentum in some parts of the world.