Financiariser les catastrophes naturelles : assurance, finance et changement climatique

Nature has become the object of an « accumulation strategy » on the part of the dominant classes. In recent decades, the latter have devised a range of financial products geared to the environmental crisis : carbon-emission markets, climate sensitive derivatives, biodiversity asset banks, disaster bonds. The article examines the conditions in which these financial products have emerged. It does so by way of a theoretical framework drawing on Marxist ecology. In particular, it examines the financialization of natural disasters through disaster bonds. This enables us, in particular, to reflect on the changes evident in the role of the State as insurer « of last resort » in the face of a disaster and the recourse to big data in the management of natural events