As you may know, Australia keeps on building and planning massive new coal mines, despite the fact that burning coal is a pretty stupid thing to do if you want a planet you can live on.
Adani’s massive new mine under construction is one of my pet peeves. You can see what I’ve said before about this mine and the people trying to stop it here and here.
In those posts, we saw how Siemens has been pushed to stop helping to build necessary infrastructure for Adani’s mine.
The general idea is to find a way to get some big important company out of the loop, making it impossible to finish the mine in some way.
Another frontal attack involves trying to scare off insurers for the mine, as I talked about here.
In the last two days, there’s been a new flurry of revelations about the Mine’s insurers.
Someone from Marsh, the insurance brokers reportedly working with Adani since 2015, has leaked details of which international insurers are hiding in the shadows:
“Leaked invoices obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age reveal for the first time that insurers have agreed to cover work on the politically contentious coal mine. Liberty International Underwriters, HDI and XL Australia charged Adani for policies covering construction work for the mine and rail project in November last year, while reinsurance giant Aspen Re also covered work in January, the invoices show.”
From what I can see, this leak broke like a firecracker up the jacksie for these insurance companies.
Their PR departments must have pulled off all-nighters to get on top of this:
“Liberty International Underwriters is a subsidiary of Liberal Mutual Insurance, a Boston-based company that announced it would not insure the Adani mine in January last year.
“A spokesman for the company said prior to that announcement, Liberty had a policy for early works construction that expired in October 2019 and it was contractually obligated to cover construction defects for a further 24 months.
"We’re taking many steps that demonstrate our commitment to the shift toward clean energy, and we will continue to improve and build on the progress we’ve made," the Liberty spokesman said.
“HDI's parent company, German-based Talanx, inked a new policy in November prohibiting it from underwriting new thermal coal projects.
“An HDI spokesman said it did not cover the project directly but could not rule out having policies with contractors employed by Adani. "It is part of our fundamental business principles not to grant any new direct insurance cover to projects like the Adani Carmichael coalmine.
“A spokeswoman for XL Australia, a subsidiary of French insurance giant AXA, said it also had default cover related to an expired policy that would end in 2021.”
From all of this blurry language, it’s not entirely obvious who is still insuring the mine?
And I’m not thinking Adani is itching to release the current line-up.
For something a bit more positive related to this story:
“Australian insurers QBE, Suncorp and Allianz have each refused to underwrite work on the mine and have adopted climate policies that restrict exposure to companies that rely on fossil fuels. Australia's four major banks — ANZ, Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank — have also refused to lend to the project.”
Not to mention the slope, which is increasingly slippery:
“However, doubts about the financial viability of the project have intensified amid falling coal prices and rising output from renewables.”
I get the feeling this is just the start when it comes to new coal mines in rich countries. As other energy options become cheaper and the public increasingly decides that coal is for losers, expect a rapid lemmings-like cliff jump for anyone brave (or stupid) enough to propose a new mine.
[Cover photo: Brendan Beirne]