Swiss Re, others eye threats due to climate-change.

Changes in weather patterns are discernible, along with their effects on everything from severity of tropical storms, drought and heat waves to proliferation of disease and food production, according to a study organized by Swiss Re Group and partners.

The study, Climate Change Futures: Health, Ecological and Economic Dimensions, was unveiled at a conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Swiss Re and the United Nations Development Program sponsored the study, which was assembled by Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment.

Experts involved with putting the report together stressed the connectivity of environmental factors, such as global warming leading to more intense tropical storms, but also severe drought in some places, heat waves in others and more rainfall in still others. Changing weather patterns also are contributing to the spread of diseases, according to the report.

Jacques Dubois, chairman and chief executive officer of Swiss Re America Holding Corp., said Swiss Re is involved in such a project because the effects of climate change, without doubt, stand to have a big impact on the reinsurer's own business. At the same time, he said, Swiss Re recognizes that such effects require a huge collaborative effort on the part of the private sector and government.

"In our view, the resources and efforts required to deal with climate change effects dwarf the resources of a single company or country," said Dubois.

Ivo Menzinger, head of Swiss Re's sustainability and emerging risk management division, said Swiss Re is doing its own part. The company committed to becoming the first financial institution to be "carbon-neutral" by 2013.

"The fundamental role of this study has been to look at the ecological effects of climate change on the environment," Paul Epstein, director of the Harvard health center, said in a pre-conference interview. He predicted the impact of these effects would become more damaging to the long-term assets of whole economies.

The economic impact of those weather extremes in developed countries is "rising exponentially," from roughly $40 billion over the past decade to possibly more than $150 billion this year alone, said Epstein.

Charles McNeill, environment team leader with the UNDP, said that for all the headline-grabbing costs associated with climate change in the developed world, the impact would be even more devastating in developing countries. "One of the great aspects of this report that you don't normally find with such reports is the interconnectivity involving silent killers not normally reported," he said.

McNeill said the report throws light on the links between changing weather patterns and problems affecting the lives and health of millions of people. "We're seeing that happen in the developed world, and we're hoping to head off some of the impact on the developing world," he said.