A LAKE District photographer is planning to send a copy of his book documenting the impact of climate change to every world leader to alert them to the realities of the global threat.

Ambleside cameraman Ashley Cooper spent years travelling the planet capturing the devastation being caused on every continent and his epic and detailed findings are contained in his book Images from a Warming Planet. It will have its national launch at the Royal Geographical Society headquarters in Kensington on Tuesday (Oct 24) at an event being attended by representatives from some of the world’s leading companies.

Among them will be senior staff from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, BP, Body Shop, HSBC, Prudential, Rolex, World Pay, and the Confederation of British Industry.

Hosted by Windermere-based Impact, the event will be addressed by leading environmentalist Jonathon Porritt, and explorer and TV presenter Paul Rose, who also lives in the Lake District. The objective is to raise awareness of climate change and create a dialogue about the role of organisations in environmental change.

Mr Cooper’s plan is to send a copy of his book to every world leader and every British MP; it has already received the backing of several leading politicians, and Pope Francis.

There are also plans to launch a climate change charity, icommit (www.ic02mmit2.net) which will attempt to engage individuals to take personal action on climate change, and build a global network of people and organisations who will commit to taking action.

Its website would have an online portal (to which individuals worldwide can upload photos), raise funds for practical projects around the world, such as reforestation, and enable Mr Cooper to continue his mission documenting global climate change. The online portal, he explained, would allow people to upload their own images of the impact of climate change happening around them, from flooding to the increased risk of hurricanes.

“Sending copies of the book to world leaders will mark the starting point for the charity,” said Mr Cooper. “We will ask them to have a photo of themselves taken with the book, and to commit themselves and their country to do what it takes to save the climate, and therefore ourselves.”

Originally published last year, Mr Cooper’s book, and photos from it, was the focus of a major exhibition in Grasmere, Cumbria, at the Heaton Cooper Studio at the start of the world’s biggest mountain film festival in Kendal. The book has already won an international Green Apple award for best environmental practice, and his powerful message has been hailed as a call to political action.

In a foreword, Jonathon Porritt says that the book is about “changes in people’s lives as they seek to make sense of weather systems that seem to have slipped those reassuring bounds of normality and predictability.”

Impact’s founder and CEO David Williams said: “We are honoured to be working with Ashley Cooper and to have sponsored this amazing book. Our hope is that it will accelerate even further attempts to reduce the rate of global warming through both its shocking imagery and natural beauty.”