A leading climate change expert has warned the insurance market that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible slide into global warming.
Dr Julian Salt, Director of the Climate Studies Consultancy, warned that the world needed to take fundamental action to halt the increase in greenhouse gasses.
He was speaking days after the United Nation’s Secretary General Dr Kofi Annan warned that the world had to end its reliance on fossil fuel to protect the environment.
In a speech at Lloyd’s, Dr Salt told the Insurance Institute of London that there was growing evidence that the world was heating up. He said that if the global temperature increased by just 2 degrees centigrade it would be impossible to halt the rise in global warming.
He added that the world was half way through the globe’s oil supplies, and if it was to use the remaining stocks it would deliver the necessary warming to hit the 2 degree mark.
Dr Salt said that there was growing evidence that the gulfstream was moving south and closer to the west coast of Africa, which for the UK would turn the climate closer to Canada with freezing winters.
“It would also have a warming effect on the waters of the North Atlantic which produce hurricanes,” he added. “We are already at the start of a 10-year hurricane cycle which could very well see a Katrina size event each year. If the gulfstream was to shift it could further increase the severity of the US hurricane seasons. The last time there was a change in the gulfstream it took 140,000 years to correct.”
Dr Salt said that the world needed to find alternative solutions to its power needs, and that change had to be coupled with a cultural shift that involved people recognising the need to move away from fossil fuels.
His speech came after Dr Annan told a meeting in Dubai this week that the world had to drive through the terms of the Kyoto protocol to reduce global emissions by 5% over the next six years.
