The next generation, and all generations to follow for that matter, are to face the direst of consequences of climate change, if reports by the European Commission, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and dozens of other reputable bodies are anything to go by.

The symptoms of what lies in store are already there for all to witness. Spring has been seen to be occurring earlier, coasts are being slowly eroded and people’s lives across much of the world are affected every summer by increasingly dangerous heat waves.

And while matters are only expected to deteriorate, Malta is by no means exempt from the global warming warnings.

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 give Malta something of a short-term benefit. But if the mercury continues to rise over the years as is being forecast, the spring and summer heat in Malta is expected to become simply unbearable.

A future global tourism scenario could, in fact, see holidaymakers increasingly travelling to cooler climes for their vacations, reversing the current trend 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 be stopped dead in its tracks. Such threats include the forecasted ever-rising temperatures leading to drought, a significantly reduced availability of fresh water, plummeting summer tourism numbers, growing health risks related to heat waves, the threat of the spread of dengue fever to Malta as habitats change along with climates.

Small islands such as Malta 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 and biodiversity.

Come September, and after sweating it out during the summer recess, Malta’s parliamentarians are to begin debating a national climate change mitigation report, which will eventually lead to a climate change adaptation strategy. A new climate change committee has been appointed to draft the strategy.

Positively, the committee will look into climate change’s repercussions on Maltese health and socio-economic well being, water and flooding, biodiversity and agriculture. The strategy is required by the European Union’s 20:20:20 goals, and eight member states have already completed theirs.

It is hoped that the new committee will provide some food for policy thought, as new strategies in all areas are required if the country is to continue to prosper over the rest of the century and beyond, and if Malta is to make its albeit comparatively small but utterly necessary contribution to battle the rising tide of climate change.

It is also hoped the new committee will be much, much more than a talking shop – the enormity of the responsibility before it must be fully recognised and embraced.

But in the face of all the evidence, there is another school of thought – championed by a not insignificant number of international scientists, academics and opinion makers – that throws cold water on the global warming issue.

While the majority of authoritative scientists – such as those on the IPCC – have 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 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 multinational corporations and SMEs alike 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 particular finding, and question the merits of whether global warming is a man-made or a natural phenomenon: 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.

Whatever school of thought one prescribes to, such dire warnings cannot be easily dismissed.