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For decades, scientists have known that the world is warming up. Just a few weeks ago, the IPCC report outlined that the climate’s global temperature is rising much sooner than anticipated. This has sent some people into panic mode, especially because the world can only achieve the goal laid out in the 2015 Paris accord, i.e. to limit global warming to 1.5%, only if global emissions hit zero by around 2050, and it looks like we are far behind.

According to Prof. Charles Galdies from the Institute of Earth Systems, who has been researching this topic and related matters closely for a number of years, this is not the time for finger pointing, and in a scenario where our technological civilisation poses a real danger to itself, the opportunity to fix things is about to run out. It is only a global effort that might give us a chance.

The IPCC report lists an array of impacts that climate change has had on Earth and that are already evident. It continues by saying that the impact on earth-system components such as the cryosphere and the hydrosphere, which tend to adjust slowly to rising temperatures, will continue to be felt for centuries and millennia.  Sea level rise is projected to rise by 2 to 3 meters over the next 2,000 years even if we achieve net zero emissions by around 2050 while with 2°C of warming it can go up to 6 meters.

• On the perceptions surrounding the IPCC report

Readers might say that this report is saying nothing new, since both the previous 4^th and 5^th Assessment Reports have already reported this. While this is true, the science has much evolved since then. But perhaps of greater importance is the change in societal attitude that we have witnessed during recent years.

The preparation of every IPCC Assessment Report is indeed an intensive process that requires the endorsement of all the major players. There are three assessment reports in every reporting cycle – Working Group (WG) 1 looks at the Physical Science Basis (the report just published on 8 August),  followed by WG2 which analyses the Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, and WG3 which looks into Mitigation and Sustainability. All the authors intimately involved in the compilation of these three reports go through multiple  drafts that are eventually reviewed not just by the experts within the IPCC, but also by the public. Everyone can access their drafts and submit comments, including governments. More than 30,000 queries and comments were individually addressed in the latest report–this is a highly iterative process. The work of WGs 2 and 3 is still ongoing and their publications are expected to come out early next year. They will carry on the narrative of the urgent actions that are needed.

• On how climate change is still an abstract concept for some of the public and policy makers

Between invisible greenhouse gases, computer predictions in a world battered by misleading information, computer hacking, fake profiles and spoof websites, the concept of climate change is still abstract for some. Yet the world is facing an extremely difficult decision on where and how to invest in its future sources of energy while scientists continue to seek further understanding on the rate of environmental change being invoked by the detrimental effect of CO₂. Well, nature has provided us with a stark warning of this impact  in the form of our neighbouring planet, Venus.

My computer home screen is locked on an image of the planet .  While Venus is a slightly closer to the sun than the Earth is, it is a fact that its unbroken clouds, clearly seen in the image, are so bright that the planet absorbs less sunlight than the Earth and so its surface ought to be cooler than our planet. This may lead our readers to think that because of this, perhaps Venus is able to offer a pleasant environment for space tourists and new human settlers. However, thanks to the pioneering Venera series of exploratory spacecrafts sent by the USSR between 1961-1985 and most recently by ESA’s , we now know that Venus has an extremely dense atmosphere that is made largely of CO₂. The resulting planetary temperature is now around 470^oC, enough to melt Lead. This intense heat is precisely due to the greenhouse gas effect made much stronger because of the high levels of CO₂ in Venus’ atmosphere! It is a practical demonstration that an increase in the abundance of GHGs may have very unpleasant to a planet which could have in the past, .

• On the principal obstacles to reaching the vital goal for climate change

In my opinion, the principal obstacle to reach net zero CO₂ emissions is the ingrained resistance in humans to change. This is being manifested at the level of the global industrial, economic and political establishments which are incapable to let loose off the hook from fossil fuels, when fossil fuels are the problem. This is why oil-related terrorism, ‘petro-aggression’, and the race for Arctic oil continue to be potential sources of international conflict ().

• On the recent heatwaves on the Maltese Islands

The collective fixation to keep to the 1.5^oC mark makes it sound as if climate change is somewhere out there, where in actual fact, we are well on our way to reaching that state soon. This gradual path is manifesting itself by means of increased occurrences of extreme events in many parts of the world during the past 2 years, including heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, flash floods, tropical cyclones that are getting more intense – events which we the global community cannot ignore any longer. People are losing their lives and their properties, and that the comfort that they are used to in the global north and south is becoming rapidly vulnerable. 

One of our recent local studies soon to be published by Springer shows how on the basis of an analysis of the latest climatological observations to date, more than 50% of Malta's total utilisable agricultural area could in effect be rendered economically unsustainable due to a fall in productivity of primary crops.

This study, which is jointly authored by Anthony Meli (Curator of the Argotti Botanic Gardens of the University of Malta) and myself, shows in quantitative terms by how much Malta’s climate is getting warmer and drier.

This study reveals for the first time how the increasingly dry conditions have brought about a significant decrease in revenues from locally important crops, which is expected to constitute an irreversible decrease in the sustainability of local agricultural productivity thereby lowering the livelihoods of farmers that are dependent on this already threatened economic sector in Malta. The exact details will be made public once this study is published in the coming months.

You are asking about the impact which successive local heat waves are having on our ecosystem. This is indeed a serious matter. Our have quantified how much the Maltese landscape is being influenced by increased aridity. However, something that is not very much debated locally is how climate change will impact our underwater landscape. During the past year, I have coordinated together with a number of natural and social scientists to see how ocean acidification (OA), which results from the excessive emission of CO₂ and its consequent dissolution in the oceans and coastal waters, can have From a , there is a need to ensure a much more coordinated effort to directly address it.

For example, at the European level national policies and legislation addressing OA are at best uncoordinated. Although OA is acknowledged at the higher levels of governance, its status as an environmental challenge is greatly diluted at the European Union Member State level. At the time we also found out that there is a complete lack of, or inadequate reporting in the Marine Strategy Framework Directive by the majority of the EU Member States, A stronger and more coordinated approach is definitely needed to build environmental, economic and social resilience of the observed and anticipated changes to the coastal marine systems.