Gimar special topic edition the impact of climate change on the financial stability of the insurance sector

 
Sovereign debt
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Corporate debt
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Equity
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Loans and mortgages
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Real estate
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Other: cash, securitisations and more.
Table 1 in section 2 shows relevance for climate-
related risks analysis.
To consider data availability and taxonomy 
issues, existing initiatives on classifying climate-
relevant investments, notably from the academic 
literature and supervisory authorities,
16
were 
reviewed. Different approaches were taken 
for equity, corporate debt, and loans and 
mortgages, compared to sovereign bonds and 
real estate, as explained further in sections 
3.1.1 and 3.1.2. The first set is based on a 
categorisation of economic sectors, whereas the 
second set is based on a geographic approach.
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3.1.1 Equity, corporate bonds, and loans and
 mortgages
The choice of climate-relevant sectors is based 
on climate policy relevant sectors (CPRS), a 
classification of economic activities to assess 
transition risk, which was developed in Battiston
et al. (2017)
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and refined over the years. 
CPRS follow the statistical classification of 
economic activities in the European Community 
(NACE Rev2, 4-digit level)
18
. As described on 
the CPRS project webpage of the University of 
Zürich,
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the CPRS “…provide a standardised 
and actionable classification of activities where 
revenues could be affected positively or negatively 
in a disorderly transition to a low carbon economy, 
based on their energy technology (eg based on 
fossil fuel or renewable energy)”. As noted in 
FSB (2021), this approach has the advantage 
of usability and compatibility with existing 
economic and financial datasets (many of which 
are also at sector level). For this reason, “the 
CPRS classification is regarded as a reference 
for climate-related financial risk assessment and 
has been used by several international financial 
institutions to assess investors’ exposure to 
climate transition risk”. For example:
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The classification was used by the European 

Insurance and Occupation Pension Authority 
(EIOPA) in its 2018 Financial Stability Report 
to assess the climate risk exposure of the 
European insurance sector.
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The European Central Bank used this 

classification in its 2019 Financial Stability 
Review to assess the exposure of euro area 
investors to economic activities that are 
considered climate policy relevant.
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The European Commission’s Joint Research 

Centre used it to assess the transition risk 
exposure of the sectors included in the 
European Commission’s green taxonomy 
(Alessi et al., 2019).
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The Austrian National Bank analysed 

banks’ exposure to transition risk using this 
classification in its Financial Stability Report 
2020.
CPRS considers the economic and financial risk 
stemming from the (mis)alignment of firms' and 
sectors' climate and decarbonisation targets. 
CPRS includes six economic sectors: fossil fuels, 
utilities (electricity), energy-intensive activities, 
buildings, transportation and agriculture, which are 
identified by considering:
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their direct and indirect contribution to GHG 

emissions (see Graph 1)
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their relevance for climate policy 

implementation (ie their cost sensitivity to 
climate policy change, such as the European 
Union carbon leakage directive 2003/87/EC
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)
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their role in the energy value chain.
Table 2 provides more detail on the mapping of 
those 6 sectors with NACE codes, as well as 
the main reasons why these sectors have been 
identified as climate-relevant.
Energy 
57% 
Transport 
16% 
Industrial 
processes 
5% 
Waste 
3% 
Agriculture, 
forestry and land 
use 
18%