María Elena Foronda Farro is 64 years old and no longer wants to accept that a large insurance company from Europe would cooperate when oil and gas companies destroy her homeland. “Dear ladies and gentlemen from Zurich Insurance, listen to us!” calls the Peruvian into the microphone. “Our lives are worth no less than yours!”
Tuesday in Zurich, Alfred-Escher-Straße 45: This is the headquarters of Zurich Insurance, the largest private insurer in Switzerland. And here are a few dozen activists gathered today, holding umbrellas blue like Zurich’s logo, holding placards calling on the company to stop insuring oil and gas companies. “End fossil finance!” People chant.
It is something like the leitmotif of the Swiss climate movement. In the Confederation, the financial sector, i.e. banks and insurance companies, generates around ten percent of the gross domestic product. That is comparatively much, in Germany there are not even four. Above all, however, Switzerland, with its many international financial service providers, has considerable leverage when it comes to the climate crisis: Your own CO₂ emissions may not be significant worldwide. On the other hand, a disproportionately large amount of Swiss money or Swiss insurance benefits is invested in climate-damaging companies and projects.
According to a published in 2020 Investigation by Swiss federal authorities, the country’s financial sector is supporting an additional expansion of international coal and oil production through its investments. A follow-up investigation found in 2022 that investments in fossil fuels have decreased compared to 2020. Nevertheless, investments continue to be made in oil and gas production companies that want to increase their production instead of reducing it.
Heaps of coal in bank branches
Of course, the Swiss climate movement has long since discovered the connection between the financial sector and global warming. Activists have already dragged piles of coal into bank branches or chained themselves to Zurich’s Paradeplatz, in front of the entrances to UBS and Credit Suisse. On Tuesday, a group of climate protectors, led by the non-governmental organization Campax, took on the Swiss insurance companies. “Insurance plays a central role in the construction and operation of oil and gas plants,” says the Campax statement, and: “Switzerland-based Zurich is one of the world’s largest insurers of fossil fuels.”
This Tuesday, the activists are primarily concerned with the environmental damage caused by oil and gas production in Latin America. In addition to many Swiss, four environmentalists from Colombia, Argentina and Peru are present as key witnesses in front of Zurich’s headquarters. “People are dying from the contaminated water and soil that oil and gas fracking leaves in my region,” says Argentinian environmental activist Fernanda Herrera. And María Elena Foronda Farro from Peru adds: “We are here today because we know that Zurich supports oil production in Latin America.” Foronda Farro says they asked the company for an interview, but the company did not respond.
Zurich also does not want to go into detail about the activists’ allegations against the SZ. “Zurich is taking decisive action to align its business with a zero-emission economy,” said a spokesman.
In fact, Zurich is committed to the Paris climate goals and announced in 2017 that it would no longer insure any new coal projects. “They were really early on,” says Peter Bosshard of the “Insure Our Future” campaign, which is campaigning for insurers to turn their backs on fossil fuel projects. Unfortunately, according to Bosshard, Zurich is sticking to its oil and gas business – even though heavyweights such as Allianz and Swiss Re have already restricted their business in this area to a greater extent. Bosshard estimates Zurich’s market share in the insurance of fossil fuels at up to 3.5 percent. “This puts Zurich in 9th place worldwide.”
A transition is necessary for the economy and society, the spokesman for Zurich justifies the group line. The few dozen people outside the company headquarters might see things differently.