7 April 2006The AustralianGlenda Korporaal
Insurers have warned that the seachange drift to the nation's tropical north will exacerbate the financial losses caused by global warming.
Climate change was likely to bring more Cyclone Larrys, more severe storms, more frequent flooding and longer droughts to the north of the country, which was becoming home to more and more Australians, IAG chief executive Michael Hawker said.
Mr Hawker, who heads up Australia's largest insurance company, was among a group of six chief executives who released a report yesterday calling on governments to take more action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
He said last year had seen a record number of weather catastrophes around the world, such as Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and warned that insurance costs in areas affected by cyclones, storms and flooding could rise to the point where people could no longer afford cover.
A report by international reinsurance giant Swiss Re, one of the companies supporting the call for faster action on greenhouse gas emissions, says worldwide losses from natural disasters have risen from $US5billion in the early 1980s to about $US80billion last year.
"There has been almost a linear increase in catastrophes occurring since global temperatures started rising in the early 1970s," Mr Hawker said yesterday.
"We have seen the Canberra bushfires, which were the longest bushfires we have ever had; the Melbourne storm a year ago, which was a one-in-100-year event; Cyclone Larry, which was a category-five storm; and the 1999 hail storms in Sydney.
"New Zealand had its worst storms on record two years ago.
"The risks are going up.
"We think you are going to see higher wind speeds, larger hailstones, greater droughts and more storms."
