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International News

No climate finance for hydropower: ‘Rivers for Climate’ declaration

Incentivising and expanding hydroelectric power construction would not only fail to prevent catastrophic climate change, but it would also worsen the climate crisis by exploding methane emissions and diverting scarce climate funds away from meaningful energy and water solutions in a world that is already grappling with severe impacts of climate change, the release said.

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As workers age, robots take on more jobs: study

“Aging is a huge part of the story” in robot adoption, said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who conducted the study with Pascual Restrepo of Boston University.

The research fits a longstanding trend of countries such as South Korea and Germany – which both have very rapidly aging workforces – also being among the world’s fastest adopters of robots, based on the number of robots per human worker they deploy.

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German auto giants place their bets on hydrogen cars

Stephan Herbst, general manager of Toyota in Europe, speaking in his role as a member of the Hydrogen Council business group, which forecasts that hydrogen will power more than 400 million cars by 2050, said he was confident that now governments had set ambitious carbon-reduction targets, they would push hydrogen alongside battery electric cars.

“We strongly believe this is not a question of either or,” he added. “We need both technologies.”

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U.S. flood insurance rates to rise for 77% of policyholders -study

Under the new “Risk Rating 2.0” system from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) taking effect Oct. 1, new premiums will be based on a property’s value, risk of flooding and other factors, rather than simply on a home’s elevation.

Meant to account for climate-change-driven shifts like increasing flood frequency, the new plans also will make the program more equitable, said Nick VinZant, QuoteWizard senior research analyst.

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U.S. VP Harris to announce $10 bln global fund to prepare for future pandemics

The new Global Health Security Financial Intermediary Fund will be created at the World Bank to coalesce resources for pandemic preparedness, the White House official said.

The Biden administration will also request an additional $850 million from the U.S. Congress for the fund, to build on the $630 million in such funding that was secured for fiscal year 2021.

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World Bank and Sri Lanka sign agreement to strengthen Climate Resilience

Sri Lanka is among countries most affected by extreme weather events and is expected to see a 1.2 percent annual GDP loss by 2050 due to climate change. It is estimated that close to 19 million Sri Lankans may live in areas that could become moderate or severe hotspots in terms of floods or droughts by 2050.

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MS Amlin AG appoints Robert Wiest as CEO

Robert Wiest brings over 30 years of industry experience. During a career at Swiss Re spanning over two decades, most recently as Chief Operating Officer, Wiest has successfully led business units as the Head of Global Business Solutions, Head of Strategy and Operations for Asia, and Head of Western and Southern Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey.

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Brit launches machine learning algorithm to enable faster claims response to catastrophe events

In this latest innovation, Brit’s Data Science team developed and overlaid a machine learning algorithm to access the ultra-high-resolution ariel images and data such that it pinpoints, color-codes, and displays properties by damage classification within days after a catastrophe event.  This enables the Brit Claims team to proactively identify, triage and assign response activity even before claims are reported.

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