Climate change

Climate change is the biggest environmental challenge facing the world today.   There is now a global consensus that our climate is changing more rapidly than ever before, based on extensive scientific evidence.   Global temperatures have risen by almost 0.8ºC in the past century and the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 1990¹.

The impact of human activities on the worlds natural Greenhouse Effect is hard to ignore.  In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted evidence that most of the warming observed over the past 50 years is attributable to human activities².

The effects of this ‘global warming’ is already being felt with rising sea levels, glaciers receding, bleaching of coral reefs and increased incidents of serious storms, flooding and natural disasters.  The Association of British Insurers (ABI)  revealed that claims for storm and flood damages in the UK doubled to over £6bn over the period 1998-2003, with the prospect of a further tripling by 2050³.  Damage from the recent 2007 flooding in the UK resulted in 165,000 claims and payouts of approximately £3bn⁴.

The economic losses from catastrophic weather events have risen globally 10-fold since the 1950s, after accounting for inflation. Part of the trend is linked to growing wealth and population, which increases economic vulnerability to extreme events, and part, is linked to regional climatic factors (eg. changes in precipitation and flooding).   The 2006 Stern Review on the economics of climate change concluded that without actions to reduce emissions, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year⁵ and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions could more than treble by the end of the century.  Current forecasts predict that global averaged temperatures will increase by some 1.1ºC to 6.4ºC by the end of the 21st century and sea levels will rise by between 20 and 60 cm by 2100⁶.

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