CBI calls for state help on climate data

The Government must make climate-change predictions more business-friendly to help companies to plan ahead for environmental factors such as extreme weather, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will say today.

The CBI's Whatever the Weather report, to be published this morning, says that although the Government has detailed data on the potential impact of climate change on the UK – thanks to the Met Office's Hadley Centre and the UK Climate Impacts Programme – the information is not in a format accessible to non-specialists.

Yet with annual flood damage alone estimated to come in at as much as £22bn every year by 2020, all organisations need to be better prepared for future risks, the business group believes.