After reading Gordon Brown's dramatic speech on Monday at the Major Economies Forum, I saw an article in The Times today about a four year drought in East Africa which many attribute to climate change and has pushed 23 million people to the brink of starvation, meaning if you believe in man made climate change, time is truly running out to avert catastrophe writes Andrew Tjaardstra, editor, Professional Broking.

When our Prime Minister utters the words "50 days to save the world" [before the world's governments meet in Copenhagen in December to discuss climate change] you know something isn't quite right.  He also added that climate change could prove more costly than two world wars and a great depression combined. And the Catlin Arctic Survey added to the gloom with it stating that the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free during summer within a decade. The seriousness of this development is hard to know, but Dr Martin Sommerkorn of the WWF International Arctic Programme, said: "Such a loss of Arctic ice sea cover has recently been assessed to set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself - self perpetuating cycles, amplifying and accelerating the consequences of global warming. This could lead to flooding affecting one-quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emissions from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."

Satisfying the interests of heavily polluting industries with looking after the health of the planet is one of the challenges of this millennium. If we take the car industry, for example, it has been extremely slow to adapt to 'green technology' and consumer sentiment, with the Toyota Primus in a league of its own.

However we look at it, our fate is interlinked with the likes of China and India who are still determined to develop. Having lived in China, I know the Chinese love food such as KFC, shopping malls, cars and tourism, and the middle class who can afford these 'luxuries' is already around 200 million of the population. Perhaps how this section of the world's population, along with India's, responds to climate change could be the key to keeping the world's temperature at a stable level.

QBE sponsors the rugby

In what is likely to be a multi-million pound deal the Australian insurer QBE has become the official 'insurance partner' for the Guinness Premier League meaning its logo will appear on the back of every player in all teams in the competition. The insurer is after name recognition amongst the company's business insurance buyers and has introduces the strap 'Specialist Business Insurance' to go alongside the QBE name. QBE also has 10 tickets at every ground each week-end until the end of the 2012 tickets, so if you are a rugby fan an invitation could be coming your way, and I hear they are encouraging guests to bring their families.

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There's one thing you can't help noticing when invited to a general insurance broking event. No, I'm not talking about the fact that someone seems to have put quite a few quid behind the bar; what really strikes me is the absence of young people. Whether it is a magazine bash or the BIBA conference, there's a definite leaning towards grey hair among the crowd writes Alasdair Stewart, head of corporate development, general insurance at the Chartered Insurance Institute.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not hankering after hanging out with the kids, but it does make me wonder about how our industry treats the people who should, in theory, be its future.

Just to add to the picture, some worrying statistics popped up in the latest CII membership survey: though most of our members think exams, qualifications, professionalism and ethics are important, those in the under-25 category, frankly, can't see the point.

If they are the future, what's going wrong today?

Let's face it, insurance overall has never been great at attracting good people or giving a clear picture of a career path. For every company that sets the professional standards its new staff need to reach within, say, five years, and rewards them for it, there's another which hands them a chair and a phone and says "off you go".

Sometimes it's not clear what investment insurance businesses are willing to make in their younger staff. For example, would they pay for CII membership or help them with developing networking skills? The evidence of this is often hard to find. And yet we wonder why our industry's youth are not so much "Gen Y", but "Gen why bother"?

A lot of this is dictated by how much employers encourage their junior staff to become qualified, embrace ethical behaviour and treating customers fairly. Without a doubt,  it is in companies' interests. Training and development and investing in their "human capital" is going to make them more money in the long run.

Just look at the people populating today's boardrooms in our sector. They were the people whom forward thinking companies invested in 10 to 15 years ago.    

The pay-back is long term, but the investment in young people is money well spent. And, you never know - they may let you listen to Dizzee Rascal on their iPod. 

Message from the editor - the winner of the Aviva competition

The winner of the Aviva competition which asked for the 13 letter word jumbled up in the Policy Market section of the 13th issue of PB  is Paul Hatty of J Hatty and Co. The answer is 'Individuality. We had a fantastic response to the competition and thank you to everybody who entered, and remember we have a competition every month in PB, please see the home page broking.co.uk and the back of the magazine.

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My week starts on a Friday as I like to end the week well prepared for the up coming fray. I have my weekly pulse call with my senior team - and then I take stock, that way I know I can enjoy my weekend writes Anthony Middle, managing director, commercial lines at Axa.

I live down in the New Forest, it's a great place to relax, unwind with my children, take in a football match if the Saints are playing at home and get a proper break - which is vital as come Monday morning I'm on the first train into London at about 6.15am.

In my working week, I've three priorities: my customers; my people and my role as leader of Commercial Lines within Axa, which is very much focused on financial performance, governance issues and the wider business environment. I pretty much divide my time equally every week.

Monday kicks off with the new business development team looking at where we should be focusing our sales effort. I'm an underwriter turned salesman myself - a strange combination some might say - but I'm really enthused by the sales process which I find very energising, so it's a great start to a Monday morning, especially if there is something really meaty in the pipeline.

Brokers are - and will remain - our primary route to market. It's very important to me to stay in touch with my customers because I want to be sure we are offering them what they want - and also providing value - not only for the brokers' clients, but also to help brokers develop and grow their own businesses.

In the last week I had drinks with a number of brokers one evening.  In this more informal environment they saw fit to take me to task on the footy front - but worse than that they ribbed me about the most recent press photo, although it was some comfort to find they thought it was most unflattering!

Later in the week, I went down to Reading to see Alex Alway and Gina Dixon at Jelf. We talked about our respective strategic directions and the range of our trading activity. Axa has a new branch office in Reading and this is the first opportunity I've had to visit the team on site and pick up feedback about life at the coalface as well as talk about our preparations for Q4 - and plans for the next year.

Every quarter my senior team has an informal lunch with Philippe Maso where we take the opportunity to really chew the cud about the issues facing our business and brainstorm new ideas. The market is such that we are seeing lots of change and we need to be fleet of foot in the way we respond - and make sure we are best placed to benefit from new environments.

One of the things on my mind at the moment is the incidence of fire losses. We've seen a dramatic rise in large fires - with sums insured that are simply not reflected in the rates. Whilst some of this may be related to recessionary fraud there are other factors, such as modern construction methods but it is one very high profile - and costly - example of why the industry needs to ensure that rates accurately reflect the insurance risk.  An ongoing challenge for sure.

But, I'm putting worries about rates behind me as it is Friday again and this week - instead of preparing for the week ahead I'm heading off to do a bit of shooting with some old mates in Bratislava.

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