British insurers prepare for 'worst case' climate impacts

By EVAN LEHMANN of ClimateWire British insurers are raising rates on homeowners to insulate themselves from increasing claims blamed on climate change, a justification that U.S. companies are hesitant — or unable — to embrace. The price of policies covering buildings in the United Kingdom rose 10 percent over the last year as insurers struggle […]

Insurers blame climate change for rising costs

Even in areas with no flooding history, flood related insurance payments are up 15 percent By Andrew Donoghue, BusinessGreen, Businesses that may already be struggling to comprehend and comply with climate-related legislation will soon face another environmental burden – rising buildings insurance. That is the conclusion of the latest quarterly study from the AA British […]

Climate change to force 75 million Pacific Islanders from their homes

More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned. By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria […]

Drought threat for Bangladesh as monsoon fails

Dhaka (AFP) July 21, 2009 – A delay to Bangladesh’s monsoon season is posing a severe risk of drought in the impoverished nation and threatening food supplies, officials warned Tuesday. Monsoon rains normally sweep Bangladesh from June to September and the South Asian country gets more than 75 percent of its annual rainfall during this […]

Global warming worsens flooding risk for Indiana

  By Gitte Laasby, Post-Tribune staff writer MERRILLVILLE — Northwest Indiana is at an increased risk for flooding as a result of global warming, according to a report released Thursday. Making matters worse, the region has already committed nearly every mistake in the book as far as preventing floods: We have straightened rivers to speed […]

Climate change batters Inuit village

The fish changed colour. New bird species were spotted. Two bridges were wiped out by a once-in-a-lifetime flood that forced villagers to dump sewage into their pristine waters. The locals have a message for city-dwellers: This is what climate change looks like. “Climate change is real,” says Ron Mongeau, the town manager of Pangnirtung, a […]

Peatlands destruction for oil palm a 'monumental mistake' for Indonesia

Indonesia’s decision earlier this year to allow conversion of up to 2 million hectares of peatlands for oil palm plantations is “a monumental mistake” for the country’s long-term economic prosperity and sustainability, argues an editorial published in the June issue of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Lian Pin Koh of ETH Zurich, Corey J.A. […]

Graph of the Day: Losses from Floods, Windstorms, and Earthquakes, 1980-2005

From the Human Impact Report, page 85: The approach of comparing the trends in weather-related and geophysical disasters is based on an analysis of loss-generating events in the publication Journal of Flood Risk. The article states that by “Assuming the socio-economic driving factors behind loss-generating events to be the same for all causes, the difference […]

Amazon hit by climate chaos of floods, drought

BY ALAN CLENDENNING SAO PAULO — Across the Amazon basin, river dwellers are adding new floors to their stilt houses, trying to stay above rising floodwaters that have killed 44 people and left 376,000 homeless. Flooding is common in the world’s largest remaining tropical wilderness, but this year the waters rose higher and stayed longer […]

Climate change hits Australia a decade early

  By Shar Adams Australia is exhibiting climate change weather patterns that were not predicted to manifest till 2020, says one of the country’s most prominent climate change scientists. Professor Ian Lowe, AO, an award-winning scientist and author of a number of books on climate change, said that when he wrote his first book, Living […]

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