Climate change is already threatening vital infrastructure such as road and rail networks, water and energy systems and healthcare, and the damage will worsen, the world's leading climate scientists will warn next week.
The damage will occur even as some regions, such as the UK and northern Europe, and parts of the Americas, benefit from human-induced global warming, a United Nations report compiled by leading scientists will conclude.
Areas that now have cold climates will experience longer growing seasons and a greater variety of crops, as well as becoming more attractive to tourists. Melting ice may also allow for mineral extraction in areas such as Canada and Russia, and drilling for oil in the Arctic.
But warmer regions, such as southern Europe, the US south and parts of Asia, will suffer lower agricultural yields, droughts and the spread of human, animal and plant diseases, the scientists are expected to conclude.
On Monday in Brussels, the world's leading climate scientists will meet to finalise their findings on the impact of global warming in the form of the report, six years in the making and drawing on the work of more than 2,500 experts. On Friday, they are scheduled to publish their summary, making up the second section of the report of the Inter-governmental Panel onClimate Change.
The first section of the report, published in February, said the scientists involved agreed they were 90 per cent certain that the earth's climate was changing as a result of human actions in producing greenhouse gases, and estimated that temperatures would rise by 3°C by the end of the century. Next week's discussions will focus on the impact that such temperature rises will have on agriculture, human health, natural eco-systems and the economy.
The report should act as a "wake-up call", said Karen Wordsworth, a partner in Met Office Consulting, an arm of the Met Office set up to help businesses deal with global warming.
The risks to property include not just those which insurers have begun to calculate, such as floods and storms, but questions of the integrity of the materials used in their construction. In the UK, for instance, buildings are generally constructed to cope with temperatures of about 28°C, but if they regularly exceed this, as they are likely to in hot summers as soon as the next decade, the buildings may have to be adapted, potentially incurring large costs. Brickwork, window fixings and glass will be affected, while drier soils could lead to subsidence.
