The past two years were the hottest on record and the election of American President Donald Trump threatens to destabilise the situation further, according to the Bermuda Risk Summit keynote speaker Jeff Goodell.

“Trump coming in is not good news for climate risk adaptation and preparedness,” he told an audience at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club. “We have seen massive cuts in NOAA. We are seeing massive cuts in all kinds of storm warning systems.”

Noting how temperatures were so astonishing in 2024, Mr Goodell still sees US budgets shifting away from funding for climate change adaptation and towards defence spending.

The Guggenheim fellow, and author of New York Times bestseller The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet said there were a few other contributing factors to global warming, but the burning of fossil fuel was the main driver.

While there have always been temperature fluctuations on the planet, the Earth is now warming 100 times faster than it ever has in geologic history, by some accounts.

“The ten hottest years on record have been in the last decade,” Mr Goodell said. “Last year was beyond, or close to the edge, of what any climate models were predicting.”

The Texas resident said 2024 was an anomaly that scientists did not expect and could not fully explain.

“We crossed the 1.5C threshold, a sort of pie in the sky target that came out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015,” he said.

He said today scientists could not only prove that global warming was largely caused by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels, but could also identify the particular culprits.

The fact that scientists can now model emissions from different oil companies is changing the narrative of responsibility and raising new questions.

“If an oil company is responsible for only 4 per cent of historic emissions, does that mean they are only liable for 4 per cent of the damages?” Mr Goodell asked.

The writer said in California some insurance firms had taken energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric to court for sparking wildfires with poorly maintained equipment.

“Does this open the door for insurance companies to also make subrogation claims against some of the big polluters,” he asked. “Things are moving in that direction and also changing politics. These claims of responsibility are complicated, but they are getting sorted out.”

There has been a massive rise in climate litigation around the world Mr Goodell said.

“These cases are for climate damages and for violation of the human right to a healthy environment. We are seeing tort cases against oil companies by state attorneys-general in the US for climate damages. We are seeing tort cases for fraud and misrepresentation against oil and gas companies.”

He said many locations in America were now asking how they could pay for climate change mitigation and damage.

“There are small towns in Florida that need to spend millions of dollars to raise the roads to protect against flooding,” he said. “Where is this money going to come from? There is a rising chorus of lawyers, people and politicians who are arguing that maybe some of the polluters should help pay for the clean-up.”

Mr Goodell is the author of six books on energy and climate change and has been a commentator on climate and energy issues on television channels such as NPR, MSNBC and CNN.