Insurers, which pay out billions of dollars each year on natural disasters, welcomed the publication yesterday of a hard-hitting warning by the UN climate panel that human activities are heating the planet.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the most authoritative group on global warming comprising 2,500 scientists from more than 130 nations, predicted severe rains, melting glaciers, droughts, heat waves and rising sea levels.
"We believe this report will be very helpful in establishing climate change at the top of the (global political) agenda," Ivo Menzinger, head of sustainability and emerging risks at Swiss Re, the world's largest reinsurer by premiums, told journalists in a telephone briefing.
For insurers, who invest huge sums in conducting their own research into climate change, the report's findings came as no surprise.
But the industry, around one-third of whose overall claims are from weather-related natural disasters, hopes the report will galvanise governments into doing more to combat accelerating global warming.
Insurers paid out over $83 billion on damages from a string of US hurricanes in 2005, making it the costliest year in the industry's history.
The IPCC report "reflects concerns about the future state of the world that we share. As an insurer, we cannot ignore the fact that the incidence of large natural catastrophes has increased over the past few years," said Peter Buomberger, group head of government and industry affairs at Zurich Financial Services.
By stating compelling evidence for climate change while debunking some of the theories raised by climate change sceptics, the report "will prove to be a milestone in bringing the debate forward", Mr Menzinger said.
Allianz, one of Europe's largest insurers, warned insurance premiums would have to rise if climate change causes natural disasters to become more frequent and more devastating.
"Thus far, our industry has always based insurance premiums on analysis of past data. However, if the UN Panel's conclusions regarding more frequent and extreme weather events are realised, we will increasingly have to account for such climate projections," said Olaf Novak, head of the company's reinsurance natural catastrophe team.
Recent research by Swiss Re into European winter storms forecast they would increase in frequency and intensity thanks to climate change by 2100, leading to an increase in insured claims by 16 to 68 per cent.
Earlier this month, Europe was buffeted by the Kyrill storm, the worst to hit the continent in years with hurricane-force winds cutting a swathe from Britain to Poland, which insurers estimate could cost them between 2.5 billion and eight billions euros.
"The good news is we still have time to adapt. Building codes can be changed to make buildings more resilient, and mitigating actions, in the sense of reducing emissions, will help prevent this (increasing winter storms) scenario from materialising," Mr Menzinger said.