Chalin Sejour, 28, sits in front of her destroyed house with her belongs covered in mud in Gonaives. Aftermath of flood in Haiti in 2008. Photograph: Ariana Cubillos/AP

Haiti was a humanitarian disaster even before the earthquake hit. It is the poorest country in the western hemisphere; most of its buildings are badly constructed out of tin and cheap concrete with many slums perched on steep, bare hillsides which are particularly prone to landslides.

In addition, the population of 9 million has barely recovered from a series of devastating flash floods, hurricanes and mudslides in the last few years.

According to Oxfam, more than one in three people in the country were already short of food, and thousands had been made homeless after four hurricanes and tropical storms which struck the island in just a few months in 2008. The hurricanes alone caused damage valued at 15% of GDP, derailing ­economic growth.

Hull: Venice of the North? A dramatic sunset over the nearby Humber bridge. Photograph: John Giles/PA

Hull could be transformed into a Venice-like waterworld and Portsmouth into a south coast version of Amalfi, engineers and architects have claimed in a study of options for developing Britain’s coastal cities in the face of rising sea levels.

The Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institute of British Architects yesterday warned the future of cities including London, Bristol and Liverpool was at risk from seas which the Environment Agency predict could rise by as much as 1.9m by 2095 in the event of a dramatic melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

The report, Facing up to Rising Sea Levels. Retreat? Defence? Attack?, suggests swaths of Hull and Portsmouth’s city centres could be allowed to flood over the next 100 years and large parts of the populations moved out.

Geo-engineering techniques, such as filling the sky with shiny dust to reflect sunlight, could curb such temperature rises without the need to restrict greenhouse gas emissions

Scientists are to hold a high-level summit to discuss how the world could take emergency measures such as blocking out the sun to slow dangerous global warming.

Experts from around the world have been invited to attend the meeting in March in California, which will examine possible field trials of so-called geo-engineering schemes, such as pumping chemicals into the air and oceans to combat climate change.

The move follows the failure of the recent Copenhagen climate talks to set meaningful carbon reduction targets, and comes amid mounting concern that such controversial techniques may be the only way to curb rising temperatures.