Press contacts: Dorothea Hackman 07710 269195⁩  |  XR UK press team 07756136396

BREAKING PHOTOS | PERMANENT ARCHIVE

Extinction Rebellion rebels target AIG as part of a national wave of Insure Our Survival actions against insurance companies fanning the flames of climate risk. 

At 12 noon today, July 16^th, 2025, protesters were at the offices of AIG in Fenchurch Street, London, demanding it does not insure the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). 

Two letters were delivered – one on behalf of local people directly affected by EACOP and another from the #StopEACOP campaign UK. 

Outside AIG, activists in red #StopEACOP suits held a die-in by an EACOP pipeline, and others waved fans declaring ‘FANNING THE FLAMES OF CLIMATE RISK’ while throwing documents entitled ‘UNDERWRITING FOSSIL FUELS’ and ‘INVESTING IN FOSSIL FUELS’ into a mock fire.

Zaki Mamdoo, Campaign Coordinator at StopEACOP said:  “Activists and defenders outside AIG’s offices today stand shoulder-to-shoulder with communities whose lands, livelihoods, and futures have been sacrificed for the EACOP, its associated projects and the repressive conditions that have followed. This demonstration is a reminder that the destruction we face is not accidental; it is the result of a global system that prioritises profit over people, and places corporate power above human life. The struggle for climate justice demands that ordinary people everywhere confront the institutions responsible for this harm because those causing it operate globally, and so must our resistance.”

73-year-old retired lecturer and grandmother from Camden Dorothea Hackman said: “Insurance companies like AIG wield immense power and could bring an end to the fossil fuel era.  Instead, they collude with short-term profiteering polluters and fan the flames of climate risk.”

As a result of global pressure, including from Extinction Rebellion, Insure our Future and the StopEACOP campaign [1], 30 major insurers have pulled out of EACOP to date[2]. However, AIG has still to rule out insuring EACOP. 

EACOP is a ‘carbon bomb’ [3], which would unleash 379 million tons of climate-heating pollution – more than 25 times the combined annual emissions of Uganda and Tanzania the host nations. [4]  This will fuel extreme weather worldwide and intensify deadly flooding, landslides, heatwaves, and droughts that are already frequent even in the UK [5].

Insurers are complicit in the climate crisis as oil, gas, and coal industries are legally obliged to insure their operations. 

In addition to profits from underwriting insurance, client premiums represent immense funds for insurance companies like AIG  –  globally, £27 trillion of assets are under management, with UK insurers having £1.8 trillion, and much of this is invested in fossil fuels. [6,7] 

This is an unsustainable contradiction. While their investment and underwriting continue to give a lifeline to the fossil fuel companies, already over a third of weather-related claims are for climate-attributed losses.[8] 

Meanwhile, climate change is doubling or even tripling the cost of home insurance for ordinary homeowners [9] and coverage is denied to many households impacted by climate change.[10] 

Yet the size of the renewable energy insurance market is still under 30 per cent of the fossil fuel insurance market.[11] This mismatch of priorities is an obstacle to the urgently needed transition to clean energy. [12]

EACOP has already displaced thousands of families in Uganda and Tanzania and is threatening food and water security and violating human rights, while disturbing critical ecosystems including Lake Victoria and Murchison Falls National Park [13, 14]. 

TotalEnergies, the majority shareholder and investor of EACOP, is accused by the UN special rapporteur on environmental defenders of ‘grave human rights violations against those opposing the projects and against the local communities, particularly in Kingfisher’. [15]  

At time of writing, 11 activists, the KCB11, have been detained and refused bail for 84 days for attempting to deliver a letter to Kenya Commercial Bank in Kampala. 

“It’s hard to imagine a more vivid picture of corporate-state collusion than activists being led into a trap and arrested for trying to share their concerns about a fossil fuel project characterised by rights and environmental harms,” said Brad Adams, Executive Director at Climate Rights International.[16]

These national days of action in July will be followed by a wave of international action in September, in solidarity with activists on the front line of new oil and gas projects.

Notes to editors

[1]  Insurance Week of Action 2024 – Extinction Rebellion UK
https://extinctionrebellion.uk/act-now/campaigns/insure-our-future/

[2]  Who’s backing the pipeline and who’s ruled it out?  https://www.stopeacop.net/insurers-checklist

[3]  Carbon Bombs – LINGO
https://www.leave-it-in-the-ground.org/projects/carbon-bombs/

[4]  ‘Monstrous’ east African oil project will emit vast amounts of carbon, data shows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/east-african-crude-oil-pipeline-carbon

[5]  How climate change worsens heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and floods https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58073295

[6]  United Nations, 8 June 2021, ‘Secretary Genera’s closing remarks to Insurance
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2021-06-08/secretary-generals-closing-remarks-insurance-development-forum#:~:text=I%20have%20recently%20been%20calling,for%20small%20businesses%20and%20individuals.

[7]  Development Forum 5 Association of British Insurers, ‘Briefing: Insurers as Investors
https://www.abi.org.uk/data-and-resources/tools-and-resources/regulation/insurers-as-investors/

[8]  Climate change accounts for over a third of insured weather losses this century and rising
https://global.insure-our-future.com/scorecard-2024-insurers-climate-losses/

[9]  How insurers are using climate change as an excuse to TRIPLE the cost of home cover
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-12748421/How-insurers-using-climate-change-excuse-TRIPLE-cost-home-cover.html

[10]  Uncovering the Role of Insurance Companies in Fueling the Climate Crisis
https://bank.green/blog/insuring-climate-crisis

[11]  Insure our Future, December 2024, ‘Within our power, 2024 scorecard on insurance, climate change and the energy transition https://global.insure-our-future.com/scorecard-2024-report/

[12]  Insuring disaster: the insurance industry’s support for fossil fuels January 2025]
https://green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Insuring-disaster.pdf

[13]  “Our Trust is Broken”: Loss of Land and Livelihoods for Oil Development in Uganda HRW
https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/07/10/our-trust-broken/loss-land-and-livelihoods-oil-development-uganda

[14]  “I was evicted and left homeless” Exploring social and environmental (in)justice along the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Project March 2025
https://www.hakidefenders.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/EACOP-REPORT.pdf

[15]  Urgent call: TotalEnergies and its shareholders must take immediate action to protect environmental defenders in Uganda in the context of the Tilenta/Kingfisher and EACOP projects June 22, 2025https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/SR_EnvDefenders_Aarhus_Public%20Statement_Total%20Energies_Annual%20Meeting_22.05.2025.pdf

[16]  Release peaceful climate activists unlawfully detained for 70 days https://cri.org/uganda-release-peaceful-climate-activists-unlawfully-held-in-detention/

About Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.

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Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the sixth mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the frontline. No one will escape the devastating impacts.