EVERYONE is looking for signs of recovery. It's not a question of if stability will return but when, illustrating how the economy moves in cycles.

It seems the same cannot be said of climate change.

We've been emitting C0² at such a rate and for so long that the damage we have done is lasting. Banks will start lending again and markets will move – but parts of planet Earth have been damaged beyond foreseeable repair.

Climate change has been to the fore again in recent weeks.

On Monday, we read first details of the likely economic impact of climate change legislation on Liverpool city region.

The report from The Mersey Partnership has provided a clear and thought-provoking study of the challenges and opportunities arising from both UK government and EU legislation to cut carbon emissions.

Earlier, the UK Climate Projections 2009 report had been published by the Government.

In the midst of last week’s heatwave, this made for alarming reading.

Its authors say the UK needs to plan now for a future that will be hotter and bring greater extremes of flood and drought.

MPs have been told that the UK climate will change even with a global deal on emissions.

Every part of the UK is likely to be wetter in winter and drier in summer, according to the projections. Summer rainfall could decrease by about 20% in parts of the country by the middle of the century. North West England could see winter rainfall increase by a similar amount, say the Government scientists.

The Government hopes this work will allow citizens, local authorities and businesses to plan for future decades.

Climate change is going to transform the way we live – including the way we do business.

We are going to need an education and communications programme of monumental proportions to get this message across, or, more importantly, to get people to realise the impact of the way they currently live on our planet.

If you doubt that's the case, consider what it will take to make you think twice about the sorts of things we now take for granted during our heat waves. Things like buying bags of ice from the supermarket; lighting barbecues or dropping the car at the garage to have the air conditioning pumped up.

That must make for elephant- sized carbon footprints all round.

MATT JOHNSON is chairman of Mando Group.