The insurance industry will on Thursday add its voice to calls for more action to halt climate change. The industry says big cuts in emissions by developed countries and funding for developing countries to tackle climate change are needed to avoid a “systemic risk to the global economy”.

Andrew Torrance, chairman of ClimateWise, an industry lobby group, and chief executive of Allianz Insurance in the UK, will tell a United Nations summit in South Africa that inaction could leave people unable to get insurance.