Global Actions Put Tokio Marine on Notice
March 31, 2021
The week of March 22nd, climate justice and community rights advocates kick-started the launch of a global campaign demanding Tokio Marine stop insuring coal, oil and gas projects. Energised actions took place outside company offices in Tokyo, Seoul, Jakarta, Delhi, Melbourne, Sydney and New York, in which groups gathered to put the global insurance company on notice:
Locking us into reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure now and far into the future is simply not acceptable. These projects wreak havoc on the climate and threaten our very existence. They are not needed and not wanted. The science is clear: we need to leave coal, oil and gas in the ground.
Activists from diverse walks of life brought the message directly to Tokio Marine’s offices, noting this is where insurance deals that allow the most destructive fossil fuel projects to advance may be sealed.
March 25th also marked the launch of the Olympic Torch Relay, of which Tokio Marine is a gold sponsor. It was in tandem with this occasion, that actions in different cities around the world kicked off the beginning of a relay of public pressure that will ramp up in the coming months.
Campaigners will continue to amplify these calls until Tokio Marine adopts a policy and actionable plans to immediately align its insurance and investment portfolios with the goals of the Paris Agreement, aiming to limit global warming to 1.5C and ensure clients respect all human rights, including Indigenous Peoples’ rights to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).
More than 30 organisations, social movements, and community alliances from around the world also sent a letter last week with the same message to the CEO of Tokio Marine. Specifically, the letter highlighted a number of fossil fuel projects of global concern that the company must urgently and unequivocally rule out — as a first step towards meaningful action.