As Donald Trump once again pulls the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aimed at keeping global warming below 1.5C, ShutTheSystem activists across Britain took drastic action against the fossil fuel industry by cutting the internet cables of some of the biggest insurance firms on the planet.
Harry Allen
As city commuters turned up at their offices last Monday morning, many would have found themselves trying to reconnect to their Wi-Fi with little effect. An overnight sabotage of the world’s biggest insurance providers’ Wi-Fi paralysed firms such as Lloyds, AIG, and AXA.
Climate activists from ShutTheSystem took direct action across London, Birmingham, Leeds, and Sheffield. Dressed as electrical engineers, they carried out the anonymous operation in protest at continued insurance funding for projects that drain the Earth’s limited natural resources.
According to the group, over 400 insurance brokers, syndicates and underwriters were impacted by the cuts, with a ShutTheSystem activist adding: “If these powerful companies don’t make public statements that they will stop driving fossil fuel expansion and destroying life on Earth, then we have no choice but to stop them ourselves.”
Cross-county Wi-Fi outages
London, a global insurance hub, faced significant challenges due to Wi-Fi outages. At the Lloyd’s of London building, around 50 companies and more than 380 registered Lloyd’s brokers encountered severe disruptions, according to reports by the Insurance Times.
The group also spoke of further outages at the Walkie Talkie building at 20 Fenchurch Street, home to several key insurers including Ascot, Hardy, Kiln and others who experienced connectivity issues affecting operations across multiple companies.
Additional offices in London’s financial district were allegedly hit with 60 Threadneedle Street, home to Talbot AIG and the German energy company RWE, affected by activist cable cuts.
Similarly, the offices at 52 Lime Street and 100 Leadenhall Street, where companies like WR Berkley, Chaucer and Chubb operate, also may have faced activist-inflicted outages.
At AXA, whose office located at 21 Queen Street, Leeds, is also known for its significant role in insuring fossil fuel industries, the alleged cable cuts would have likely disrupted daily operations.
Over in Birmingham, ShutTheSystem say they have intercepted and cut the cables at the AIG office at 60 Church Street, potentially affecting communications and day-to-day insurance processing tasks. These incidents added to a growing list of affected major insurers across the country.
Climate fears becoming a reality
Insurance providers are well-known for raising insurance costs in the wake of natural disasters like the wildfires we have just seen in Los Angeles. Similarly, a track record of insurance policy coverage denial for places most affected by extreme climate change is becoming commonplace.
As the planet is being blasted by record temperatures, far exceeding the 1.5C danger threshold set by climate scientists, insurance providers continue to insure the world’s biggest investors of polluting coal power, inland and offshore fracking, arctic deep sea drilling, and gas extraction in the Amazon rainforest among many others.
Major banks such as JP Morgan, HSBC and Deutsche Bank are some of the biggest beneficiaries of the coverage and it gives them the peace of mind to invest enormously in profit-focused, climate-polluting projects.
ShutTheSystem says their demands for change are based on the Banking on Climate Chaos report released last year, and it’s clear they have had some past success.
Previous action has seen them pressure Probitas, a subsidiary of Lloyds into refusing insurance coverage for two major carbon bomb projects in Cumbria and East Africa.
Similarly, they forced a meeting with the CEO of Swiss provider Zurich, who will now say ‘no’ to new insurance underwriting for oil and gas projects.
The changing nature of climate protest in Britain
As the Labour government cracks down on the right to protest, utilizing the new powers given under the Conservative-tabled Public Order Act 2023, many activists may be resorting to hidden acts of sabotage to avoid lengthy punishments for seemingly minor offences.
The Just Stop Oil co-founder Roger Hallam is currently serving a 5-year sentence for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” with 4 other activists following suit. We are seeing a kickback from the recent statutory changes.
Anonymous activism is nothing new, but the lengths ShutTheSystem have gone to disrupt the business-as-usual insurance industry shows an increasingly zero-tolerance policy towards corporate providers who are failing to act on net-zero targets, or work towards building transition plans for the worst-polluting recipients of insurance. ShutTheSystem claims to be a non-violent, underground climate group seeking direct action on issues of climate justice. The group seeks to cut off financial and insurance-based support for fossil fuel expansion and they demand wholesale change to business strategy and investment services to decelerate the impact of climate change.
A press release for the group stated: “We will not give up until insurance companies take responsible action.”
(Photos: Pixabay)
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