Let's act now or pay the price

With less than a month to go before the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, the future of our planet still desperately depends on whether a global agreement to drastically reduce global warming to no more than 2°C can be secured.

The UK government believes that if the world is allowed to warm by a further 4°C - which would happen by 2060 if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at present levels - the future security and prosperity of our countries look bleak, with many more natural disasters brewing on the horizon, like the recent tropical storm in the Philippines, which killed hundreds and thrusting thousands more into poverty. So imagine the future effects small island states like Malta could experience.

This is why I presented the Resources and Rural Affairs Minister, George Pullicino, with a map illustrating the devastating climatic impacts this increase in world temperature would have on Malta and our world by 2060... as well as highlighting both our countries' commitment to curbing climate change. The map is featured in the centre pages of The Times today.

Using the latest in scientific research by the UK Met Office, the map highlights the intense temperature rises on land, with the hottest days of the year in many highly-populated areas being between 6 - 12°C (11-22F) higher than they are now - increases that could make summers in Malta unbearable and destroy many farmers' crops. Malta would also be badly affected if droughts occur twice as frequently in the Mediterranean basin.

In addition, the map shows that rainfall could be reduced by up to 20 per cent in often-parched Malta, as well as painfully arid areas from western Africa to Central America, creating famines and poverty levels never witnessed before, displacing people and increasing migration to unprecedented levels.

It could also lead to a 20 per cent increase in rainfall in areas prone to flooding, such as India, which already suffers from a huge amount of destruction, increase in disease and loss of life, every time a serious flood hits.

The impact of sea level rises would also put 150 million more people at risk from flooding in Asia, and other vulnerable regions, as well as reducing our stunningly beautiful Amazon rainforest to scrubland. And the increase in European forest fires will destroy our closest forestation.

The map also examines the impacts a rise in global temperatures would have on agricultural production, with potentially tens to hundreds of millions more people at risk from hunger... and, later this century, we could be faced with a situation where more than a third of the world's population is living in areas with only limited access to water.

And I have not even touched on flora or fauna: it won't just be the polar bears whose food sources are disappearing as fast as their iceberg homes melt away... a third of the world's wildlife and plant species are at an increasingly high risk of extinction with a 4°C rise in temperature.

It is also extremely important for me, as a diplomat, as it is for the world's political leaders, that global warming is slowed down before governments are stretched to breaking point. This is because the geopolitical implications of the physical, economic and human impacts highlighted by the map would be far reaching and transformational. Climate change will increasingly affect all of our foreign policy decisions, changing not just the physical landscape but the political context and choices we have to work with. It could have a potentially devastating impact on our national security and prosperity, threatening our access to essential resources, our infrastructure and our social and economic stability.

What we must understand is that climate change is not a future threat; it is a growing catastrophe that we are already experiencing today. The map illustrates the disastrous events that could occur by 2060 - during the lifetime of our younger generation. That is why we all need to build momentum and create the global political will to secure the ambitious, fair and effective global deal that we in Malta, the UK and the world so desperately need.

The author is the British High Commissioner to Malta.