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Insurance companies should collect a carbon levy

A surcharge on energy producers would fund climate adaptation and the low-carbon transition, suggest Anthony J. Webster and Richard H. Clarke.

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Correspondence to Anthony J. Webster.

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Competing interests

R.H.C. is Director (Research) of Predict Ability Limited (PAL) and author of the book Predicting the Price of Carbon: How to Crack the Climate Code for Good, which is self-published by PAL. PAL is a science-led start-up limited company (incorporated in 2015) that claims to have determined a realistic carbon price based on insurance loss and damage, specifically using the Munich Re disaster database and other sources of mass data. A simple, lightning-based global attribution method has been used in the absence of the widespread event attribution system called for in the Nature Comment article. PAL has been privately funded since its beginning in 2015 by Dr Bruce Menzies (Chairman). The three directors are the only shareholders. More at http://predictability.ltd.uk/wp.

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Webster, A., Clarke, R. Insurance companies should collect a carbon levy. Nature 549, 152–154 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/549152a

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