"Britain should prepare for massive loss of landmass"

It likely there will be searise problems before 2250 - esp. the way the CO2 is rising. But it's good they are thinking ahead, at any rate.

UK should change building design, transport and energy infrastructure ahead of climate change and high sea levels warn engineers.

Ministers should prepare the British people to "adapt" in the longer term to a landscape devastated by climate change, including the possible abandonment of parts of London and East Anglia, a leading industry body warns today .

Action to curb carbon emissions is failing, so the UK should immediately change the way it designs buildings, transport and energy infrastructure in preparation for aworld potentially characterised by extreme heat and high sea levels, argues the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) in a new report.

The institute said it wanted its latest research to provoke serious action for future planning "not just for the sake of our planet but also for the human race. Yes, we need to mitigate [emissions] – but the evidence shows this is not working alone."

Even with significant global commitment to avert climate change it could be many centuries before average temperatures can be stabilised, says the document, Climate Change: Adapting to the Inevitable?, which was described by environmentalists as a "wake-up call" for government.

IMechE said that sea levels are predicted to rise by 2m by 2250 and 7m by the end of that century.

"A seven-metre rise in sea levels would impact on vast areas of the UK, including parts of London which border the Thames,[such as] Canary Wharf, Chelsea and Westminster, all of which would need to be abandoned," the report argues.

The climate change modelling used in the IMechE report was developed by the University of East Anglia and was in line with current international thinking, Fox said, claiming that politicians and others tended to be more focused on short-term actions without considering longer term consequences and solutions.

The British canal systems, the Forth Road Bridge and further afield the Panama Canal were projects that were constructed to last up to 250 years and it was time that government considered what kind of infrastructure would be needed post-2100 especially as the Kyoto Protocol against climate change had produced no reduction in carbon output, he added.