The next generation, and all the generations to follow for that matter, will be facing the dire consequences of climate change, if a report drawn up by over 400 eminent scientists is anything to go by.

This time the warnings do not emerge from a radical, non-governmental organisation perceived as bent on scare-mongering, but rather from the cream of the world’s scientific crop.

The long-awaited report, to be issued in the near future by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – a body established by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – has produced a slew of ominous warnings related to the effects of climate change.

The threats highlighted are to be faced by every continent on Earth unless the issue is addressed post-haste.

The symptoms of what lies in store are already there for all to see and experience. Spring has been seen to be coming around earlier, coasts are being slowly eroded and people’s lives across the world are affected every summer by devastating heat waves.

And while matters are only expected to deteriorate, Malta is by no means exempted from the global warming warning. Malta, in fact, 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.

Granted, warmer temperatures will lead to a somewhat longer spring and summer tourism season, which will of course bring the islands something of a short-term benefit. But as the mercury continues to rise over the years, as is forecast, the spring and summer heat in Malta is expected to become unbearable.

A future global tourism scenario could, in fact, see holiday-makers increasingly travelling to cooler climes for their vacations, turning the current trend on its head and rendering Malta a tourism destination along the lines of what Iceland is today in winter.

Southern Europe as a whole faces multiple threats over the coming decades, should global warming fail to be addressed and stopped in its tracks. Such threats include the predicted ever-rising temperatures leading to drought, a significantly reduced availability of fresh water, plummeting summer tourism numbers and growing health risks related to heat waves and other phenomena.

Small islands such as Malta, meanwhile, are particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels and extreme weather events resulting from climate change. Such islands also face deteriorating coastal conditions as beaches erode, while heavy flooding and storm surges are expected to have a similarly devastating effect. Higher temperatures are also expected to bring about an increased invasion of non-native species – wreaking havoc on local ecosystems.

But in the face of the evidence, to be published in the near future in the IPCC’s full 1,500 page report, there is another school of thought championed by a not insignificant number of scientists, academics and opinion makers that throws cold water on the global warming issue.

While the IPCC scientists have apparently unequivocally found that humans are responsible for warming the climate, and that the impacts are already being felt across the world, there is a strong lobby that argues that the rising temperatures being recorded and predicted are not human-induced, but are rather a part of the Earth’s natural climatic cycle.

Global warming, they argue, has become a big business that has seen multi-national corporations, as well as SMEs, cashing in on what they construe as an artificial, marketing and media-catalysed commercial phenomenon.

But one must stop and reflect for a moment on one of the IPCC report’s most salient findings, and question the merits of ignoring the warnings, irrespective of how remote the possibility of their being realised is.

The scientists have found that a seemingly insignificant one degree rise in temperature could place up to 30 per cent of the world’s species at risk of extinction, while a rise of just a few more degrees would entail significant extinctions around the globe.

Such a warning cannot be easily dismissed.