New Book Alert: Criminology and Climate: Insurance, Finance and the Regulation of Harmscapes

30 Dec 2020
30 Dec 2020

Criminology and Climate: Insurance, Finance and the Regulation of Harmscapes. a new book edited by  Cameron Holley, Liam Phelan and Clifford Shearing, explores the role of the insurance industry in contributing to, and responding to, the harms that climate change has brought and will bring either directly or indirectly. The Anthropocene signifies a new role for humankind: we are the only species that has become a driving force in the planetary system. What might criminology be in the Anthropocene? What does the Anthropocene suggest for future theory and practice of criminology? Criminology and Climate, as part of Routledge’s Criminology at the Edge Series, seeks to contribute to this research agenda by exploring differing vantage points relevant to thinking within criminology.

Contemporary societies are presented with myriad intersecting and interacting climate-related harms at multiple scales. Criminology and Climate brings attention to the finance sector, with a particular focus on the insurance industry as one of its most significant components, in both generating and responding to new climate ‘harmscapes’. Bringing together thought leaders from a variety of disciplines, this book considers what finance and insurance have and might still do, as ‘fulcrum institutions’, to contribute to the realisation of safe and just planetary spaces.

An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, law and environmental studies and provides readers with a basis to analyse the challenges and opportunities for the finance sector, and in particular the insurance industry, in the regulation of climate harms.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Dark clouds: Regulatory possibilities

Cameron Holley, Liam Phelan and Clifford Shearing

Chapter 2: Co-creating sustainable risk futures: a role for insurers

Vanessa Otto-Mentz and Johan Strumpfer

Chapter 3: Crime, regulation and climate finance

Neil Gunningham

Chapter 4: Speak loudly and carry a small stick: Prudential regulation and the climate, energy and finance nexus

Darren Sinclair

Chapter 5: The contradictory roles of the insurance industry in the era of climate change

Mathieu Charbonneau and Aaron Doyle

Chapter 6: Quantifying changing climate risks and built environments in Australia: Implications for lenders, insurers and regulators

Karl Mallon and Liam Phelan

Chapter 7: The influence of government regulation on insurers’ responses to climate change

Louise du Toit

Chapter 8: Insurance in the Anthropocene: Exposure, solvency and manoeuvrability

Nicholas Philip Simpson

Chapter 9: Finance actors and climate-related disclosure regulation: Logic, limits and emerging accountability

Megan Bowman. and Daniel Wiseman.

Chapter 10: Towards attribution-based climate insurance: redefining who should pay for weather-related insurance

Mark New, Sylvia Dorbor, Romaric Odoulami. and David Maslo