The local Meteorological Office has reported that January was the warmest ever – or perhaps one should say the least cold, considering that it is a winter month in the northern hemisphere – since records started being kept in Malta 84 years ago.

That was not a surprise, as each one of us realised that the first month of the new year was rather unusual. Coats, scarves and gloves were kept in the wardrobe as Malta experienced what the office described as an “extraordinary month” in weather terms.

The average high was 17.5 degrees Celsius, a staggering 2.5-degree increase over the average, and the Met Office said that such temperatures are normal at Easter time, not in January.

Only a few days later, an inter-governmental panel on world climate change confirmed fears that the weather patterns on our planet are changing, and they are changing fast.

The 21-page report, edited by representatives of 113 governments, gives a rather bleak picture of the situation.

It was said that global warming is “very likely” caused by man, as concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750”, mainly from the use of fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal.

With the cause established, the experts went on to say that now that the world has begun to warm up, hotter temperatures and rises in sea level “would continue for centuries”, and this irrespective of any efforts made by man to reverse the trend by controlling pollution. The scientists said it is very likely that heat waves, hot weather and heavy rainfalls “will continue to be more frequent”, and that ominously towards the end of the century sea ice in the Arctic Circle may disappear “almost entirely” during summer.

The bad news does not stop here. There are predictions that there will be an average temperature rise of between 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100, which is a wider range than another report published six years ago. There are also projections that the sea levels will rise by 18 to 59 centimetres, again by the end of the century. An additional 10 to 20 centimetres are possible if the melting of polar ice sheets continues.

The increase in hurricane and tropical cyclone strength since 1970 can also be “more likely than not” attributed to man-made global warming.

Scientists have made things clearer now. “It’s later than we think,” panel co-chair Susan Solomon, from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Associated Press.

Although the report stops short of making suggestions as to what government should do to tackle the problem, scientists did warn that more people will die because of the warmer climate and there will be high costs to adapt to a warmer world with more extreme temperatures.

The effects of global warming will vary in different parts of the world. The report says that the closer to the poles, the higher will the temperature rise. But the main threat seems to be that extreme weather conditions – heat waves, droughts, floods and hurricanes – have become more common and will continue to become so in the years to come.

The real worry highlighted in the report is the statement made that no matter how much civilisation reduces its greenhouse gas emissions, global warming will continue for centuries to come.

Yet, this should not stop governments from taking action. Scientists have expressed their concern that the authorities would take the report to mean that nothing could be done to improve the situation. But the experts believe that measures should continue to be taken to, at least, slow the process.

Governments have to play a leading role in this. They should get together, take note of such expert advice and come up with strong plans in a bid to control the situation. It would then be up to each and every one of us to modify the way we live to give this planet a better chance to survive.

We owe it to future generations.