Climate change activists have pressed insurers to cease underwriting oil and gas businesses, saying fossil fuels combined account for 55% of global carbon emissions.

Insure Our Future, a Greenpeace-backed group that focuses on the industry, says Suncorp is the first insurer anywhere to announce it would phase out underwriting and financing oil and gas projects by 2025.

The Queensland-based insurer, which confirmed the move in August when its full-year results were released, is “setting a precedent which others need to follow,” Insure Our Future says in its annual report.

“The insurance industry is waking up to the need to respond to the climate emergency, but time is running out. Action needs to expand across all fossil fuels and scale up fast.”

Steps taken by the industry globally to end or limit its involvement with the coal sector is already yielding dividends, a sign of insurers’ importance to the international effort to achieve the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees or lower.

Many coal projects including the Adani mine in Queensland are finding it hard to secure insurance because of the industry’s actions.

At least 23 insurers and reinsurers have ended or limited their cover for coal projects, up from 17 last year They control 12.9% of the primary insurance market and 48.3% of the reinsurance market.

“The industry’s withdrawal from coal is having a tangible impact,” the report said. “Coal developers are facing rate increases of up to 40%, according to Willis Towers Watson.

“Insurers have a unique power to drive the transition to a low-carbon economy by only insuring projects that are consistent with a 1.5 degree Celsius target.”

Click here for the report.