Category:

Disaster & Management

Puri launches framework for cities to inculcate climate-sensitive approach to urban planning

At a virtual event, after launching ”Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework 2.0”, Puri said, “It is estimated that climate change will impact the Indian GDP by 2-6 per cent on an annual basis. 

“This means that our future development goals and investments will also be severely affected if we do not address climate risks now.”

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COVID-19 “not a capital event”, 3% decline in global reinsurance capital in the first half of 2020: Willis Re

Total capital dedicated to the global reinsurance industry was USD 587 billion at 30 June 2020, combined ratio worsened from 94.9% in the first half of 2019 to 104.1%, due to COVID-19 losses which added 11.1 percentage points to combined ratios on average. However, on an underlying basis i.e. normalising COVID-19 and catastrophe losses and excluding prior year reserve development, the combined ratio improved from 100.5% to 98.6%.
James Kent, Global CEO, Willis Re, said: “This half-year analysis shows a reinsurance market understandably in a state of change. While reinsurers have so far resiliently shouldered the combined effects of COVID-19 losses and investment market volatility, underlying profitability remains challenging. Uncertainty therefore remains, particularly over the potential impact of COVID-19 on long-tail lines, which is driving reinsurers to deliver additional improvement in underwriting returns. We expect to see further reinsurance market discipline as well as continued differentiation between regions and clients based on past performance and underlying risk.”

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Learned from COVID-19 Pandemic to mitigate the risks of Climate Change?

The work to promote resiliency in the face of climate change must be collective in nature, with the insurance industry having an important role to play. Better risk transfer solutions and a higher take-up rate of insurance across communities means a faster recovery. The insurance industry has an advanced understanding of climate risk and extreme events, and its modelling, analyzing and forecasting capabilities offer vital insights to other participants in the resilience ecosystem, helping them better comprehend the risks, identify potential weaknesses and plot a course toward prevention.

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Climate change may cause 26% habitat loss for snow trout in Himalayan rivers: Study

The study says mountain systems across the globe are conspicuously sensitive to on-going climate alterations and the condition is much more detrimental in the Himalaya, where the rate of warming, and thus the glacier meltdown, is much higher than elsewhere.
The study reiterates that if the countries across the globe continue their greenhouse emissions as usual (mentioning it as the ‘business-as-usual scenario’), “the species (snow trout) would lose a net habitat of 16.29% till the year 2050 which would further increase to 26.56% in the year 2070.”

“As it stands, the snow trout faces serious threats due to river valley modifications, destructive fishing practices and exotic salmonid introductions,” it says.

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India reports record daily jump of 95,735 Coronavirus cases

In the last 24 hours, 95,735 new infections were detected, with 1,172 deaths accounting for the highest single-day mortality figures in more than a month, to push the toll beyond 75,000.
The COVID-19 fatality rate has further dropped to 1.68 per cent while the recovery rate was recorded at 77.74 per cent

There are 9,19,018 active cases in the country which comprise 20.58 per cent of the total caseload, the data stated

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