50,000 sign petition asking insurer to drop Trans Mountain pipeline

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — More than 50,000 people have signed a petition asking the company insuring the Trans Mountain pipeline to drop its coverage.

Environmental organization Stand.earth brought the petition to Zurich Insurance Group’s Vancouver office Wednesday, hoping it would prompt the company to decide not to renew its insurance policy. The group is Switzerland’s largest insurance provider, a company that promised to divest from the oil sands sector earlier this year.

“We are calling on insurance giant Zurich to not insure the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. Canada’s oil sands industry, which is one of the most climate intensive forms of oil in the world, cannot be allowed to continue to grow — or we will lose in our global fight to maintain a climate safe world for future generations. That is why stopping the expansion of this pipeline is so important,” said Sven Biggs, Climate and Energy Campaigner at Stand.earth.

Trans Mountain is in the middle of renewing its liability insurance for the existing pipeline and will have to buy additional insurance for the expansion six months before the pipeline is operational.

Earlier this month, 32 environmental, Indigenous and citizen groups launched a campaign going after companies listed on the insurance certificate for Trans Mountain pipeline to drop the policies ahead of the August 31 renewal deadline.

In June, Zurich Insurance Group pledged it would generally no longer underwrite or invest in companies that bring in more than 30 per cent of their revenue directly from extracting oil or from oil sands.

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