At the moment Malta is fortunate enough to bask in the warm Mediterranean sun for most of the year but, according to an assembly of the world’s most eminent climate scientists, southern Europe and small islands such as Malta stand at particular risk of climate change.

Malta faces a number of daunting challenges that will be brought on by rising sea levels, escalating temperatures, drought and coastal erosion over the coming decades, as the full effect of climate change rolls out its potentially devastating effects, according to a summary of the Fourth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2007, to be issued in the near future by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

On a global level, the authoritative report, drawn up and reviewed by 441 scientists from across the world, warns that the gradual heating of the Earth’s atmosphere will in future change from being a mere inconvenience to a matter of danger, death and extinction of species, with the poorest parts of the world, particularly Africa and Asia, being the hardest hit.

The report finds that humans are responsible for warming the climate and that the impacts are already being felt across the world. Spring is occurring earlier, coasts are being eroded by higher sea levels and people’s health is being affected by summer heat waves.

The scientists’ findings, published in a 23-page summary, the first part of a 1,500-page document, include some rather ominous predictions for small islands and for southern Europe as a whole.

For southern Europe, the IPCC projects climate change to worsen conditions in a region already vulnerable to climatic variability. Over the coming decades, scientists forecast ever-rising temperatures leading to drought and a significantly reduced availability of fresh water. They also predict a diminishing of summer tourism, as well as crop productivity, while health risks from heat waves are expected to increase significantly.

Small islands such as Malta, whether in the tropics or higher latitudes, have certain characteristics that place them in an especially vulnerable position when it comes to dealing with the rising sea levels and extreme weather events expected to result from climate change.

Small islands also face a deterioration of coastal

conditions through the erosion of beaches that will, in turn, reduce the tourism value of such locations and affect local resources such as fishing.

As the polar ice caps continue to melt, scientists warn that the resulting rise in sea levels will lead to heavy flooding, while storm surge, erosion and other coastal hazards are expected to have a devastating effect.

In middle and high latitude islands such as Malta, higher temperatures are also expected to bring about an increased invasion of non-native species – wreaking havoc on local ecosystems.

Coasts and low-lying areas, meanwhile, are projected to be exposed to increasing risks from the effects of climate change. These include coastal erosion and rising sea levels, the effect of which, scientists warn, will be exacerbated by increasing human-induced pressures on coastal areas.

Coastal wetlands, including salt marshes, are projected to be negatively affected by rising sea levels, especially where they are constrained on their landward side or starved of sediment.

Many millions of people are projected to be flooded every year due to sea level rises by the 2080s. Densely-populated and low-lying areas, where adaptive capacity is relatively low and which already face other challenges such as tropical storms or local coastal subsidence, are especially at risk.

While the numbers of people affected will be the greatest in the large deltas of Asia and Africa, the report finds that small islands are especially vulnerable to such eventualities.

Europe as a whole has already had tastes of what is in store, having recently experienced retreating glaciers, longer growing seasons, shift of species ranges and the health impacts of heat waves of “unprecedented magnitude”.

All such climatic changes observed of late, scientists advise, are consistent with what is being projected in terms of future climate change. The report, in fact, observes that nearly all European regions are expected to be negatively affected by some future impact of climate change and that these will pose challenges to many economic sectors.

Climate change is also expected to magnify regional differences in Europe’s natural resources and assets. Negative impacts will include an increased risk of inland flash floods, more frequent coastal flooding and increased erosion due to storminess and rising sea levels. The great majority of organisms and ecosystems, meanwhile, will have difficulty adapting to such climate change.

Mountainous areas will face glacier retreat, reduced snow cover and extensive species losses – in some areas up to 60 per cent under high emission scenarios by 2080.

The report also warns that by 2020, Africa will be looking at an additional 75 to 250 million people going thirsty because of climate change, while deadly water-borne and diarrhoea diseases “primarily associated with floods and droughts are expected to rise” in Asia because of global warming.

But many changes to the report, made during a meeting of government negotiators from more than 120 countries, played down some of the dangers forecast by the authors – all eminent scientists.

“Many millions more people are projected to be flooded every year due to sea-level rise by the 2080s,” the report notes. “The numbers affected will be the largest in the mega-deltas of Asia and Africa, while small islands are especially vulnerable.”

The draft version, however, as proposed by scientists had said “hundreds of millions” of people would be vulnerable to flooding, rather than “many millions.”

The final report also dropped any mention of the possibility that up to 120 million people are at risk of hunger because of global warming, referring instead to “complex localised negative impacts on small-holders, subsidence farmers and fishers”.

The first few degrees increase in global temperature is actually expected to increase global food supply, after which it will plummet, the report finds. An increase of just about one degree Celsius could mean “up to 30 per cent of the species at increasing risk of extinction,” the report observes. If the Earth heats a few more degrees, however, the threat increases to “significant extinctions around the globe”.

Many of the worst effects are not necessarily etched in stone, the report notes in its final pages, adding that humans can build better structures, adapt to future global warming threats and stave off many such effects by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.