2009-04-29

By Editor, CIR

Climate change will increase water scarcity, alter food production and impact on energy supply and migration patterns, a new report by Lloyd's predicts.

'Climate Change and security: risks and opportunities for business', a report that focuses on the threates and opportunities for business, has been launched in partnership with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

"Climate change will change the way we live and work, and will lead to greater competition for scarce resources, such as food and water,'' says Lloyd's chief executive, Dr Richard Ward.

"This is likely to result in increased economic nationalism and greater global insecurity, which will in turn add to the complexity and cost of doing business.

"Every organisation needs to have a clear understanding of its particular vulnerabilities and have in place a range of mitigation strategies. Their ability to understand what the impacts of climate change are going to be could not only protect them from threats but could also open up new business opportunities."

The report explores four key areas through case studies, outlining their impacts on business:

Water: The risk of water-induced conflict with particular reference to competition between India and Pakistan over access to the diminishing supply of water from the Indus river basin.

Food: Issues of food security, with a focus on the problems facing China, a country with a large population and declining water resources and arable land, and the prospect for tension with Russia, a country with an excess of arable land and water and a declining population.

Energy security: looking specifically at the Arctic, an area rich in oil and gas resources which are becoming increasingly exploitable as the ice-cap melts, and which could be the subject of competing claims by five nations.

Migration: with a particular focus on the problems potentially faced by the USA in the event that climate change drives populations in Mexico to migrate northwards.

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