Mr. Mike McGavick, Chairperson of the Geneva Association, Mr. Robert Glasser, Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction, Mr. Selwin Hart, Director of the Climate Change Support Team, Excellencies, Distinguished representatives of the insurance industry, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am pleased to welcome you to this important meeting.

The insurance industry was a key actor at the Climate Summit I hosted in 2014.

And your support was instrumental in mobilizing momentum for the historic Paris Agreement in December.

Climate change poses an unprecedented global challenge.

It threatens to reverse decades of development gains, jeopardize peace and security and destabilize the global economy.

The impacts of climate change will affect every aspect of our lives.

Some communities and countries will be more affected than others, but no-one is immune.

Climate change profoundly affects your core business in two important ways.

First, you will be faced with mounting claims of a magnitude not yet seen.

Second, your investment decisions could give rise to unexpected risks.

Conversely, if you invest wisely, you could reap new rewards – for both your own businesses and society at large.

That is why I am pleased to welcome you today.

The world needs your leadership to meet the climate challenge.

Last year, in Paris, I launched a new multi-stakeholder global initiative call A2R to increase climate resilience.

It stands for Anticipate, Absorb, and Reshape.

We need to better anticipate and act on climate hazards through early earning and early action.

We need the capacity to absorb shocks by increasing insurance and social protection coverage.

And we need to reshape development to reduce risks at the national and international level.

Your support was vital in launching A2R and a number of other initiatives such as the G7 InsuResilience.

Your support has also been critical in forging new instruments to manage risks.

The Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and the African Risk Capacity are two examples.

You are showing yourselves willing and able to respond to this new global landscape.

Today, I have five more challenges for you.

First, I urge you to green your investment portfolios and, by 2020, to measure your carbon footprint.

It is not enough to simply create new products to respond to climate catastrophes.

You must also decarbonize your investments so they do not contribute to rising greenhouse emissions.

At some $25 trillion dollars, you own some of the world’s largest investment portfolios.

Your investment decisions are crucial for reducing the growth of carbon emissions and protecting again the financial disruption caused by stranded assets.

Second, I challenge you to double your investments in clean, sustainable energy by 2020.

Investment in clean energy is growing rapidly.

Renewable energy sources are becoming rapidly cheaper and more available to larger segments of the global population.

But they still compete against trillions of dollars invested in the fossil fuel industry.

Your investments can significantly alter this equation.

With the world population edging towards 8 billion people, clean energy is one of the world’s biggest market opportunities.

I urge you to seize this moment and join my Sustainable Energy for All Initiative.

This unique public-private partnership aims to bring modern energy to all and, at the same time, double energy efficiency and the adoption of renewables.

Third, I ask you to work with the United Nations to ensure that early warning and early actions are made available to the most vulnerable countries by 2020.

Economic losses from natural disasters are now estimated to exceed $300 billion dollars a year.

This century, more than 1 million people have already lost their lives to disasters.

We need to move from managing disasters to managing and reducing risks.

The poorest and most vulnerable people – those who have done least to cause climate change – need support to reduce their exposure to climate impacts.

My fourth challenge follows from this.

We need to provide the most vulnerable with greater access to risk transfer mechanisms.

This is not an easy task. But there are examples.

I commend Germany’s leadership in launching its InsuResilience Initiative, which seeks to provide at least 400 million people with access to risk insurance.

I urge you to build on the foundation laid by sovereign risk pools, including the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility and the African Risk Capacity.

We should aim to establish similar risk pools across the globe by 2020.

Fifth and last, I challenge you to develop auditable standards in your industry that incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals.

It is no longer sufficient to work on voluntary principles and guidelines that do not affect vital decisions.

It is no longer sufficient to think that human development is the responsibility of governments alone.

We thought the same about climate change for years.

We were wrong.

The Sustainable Development Goals represent a systems-approach to development.

Success in attaining any one goal depends on progress in attaining the others, be it on climate, energy, water, land, cities or health.

The goals underscore the reality that all key sectors of the economy are interlinked, and that all sectors of society must benefit from development if it is to be truly sustainable.

They also encompass the reality that our health and well-being are inextricably linked to the health of the planet.

That is why sustainable development must be the framework for insurance and investment decisions that will drive lasting, positive change for all.

I urge you to continue this dialogue with the United Nations and among yourselves.

I look forward to working with you, and I thank you for your leadership.