A binding global agreement on limiting climate change by setting a price on carbon is unlikely in the near-term, according to the investment firm founded by Al Gore, who said investors should still prepare for fossil fuel industries to lose billions in value over the coming decades.

Gore, the former US vice-president who has reinvented himself as one of the world's leading campaigners on the issue of climate change, released a report yesterday aimed at setting out the financial risks to the global economy, as well as to investors, from rising carbon-dioxide emissions.