That the issue of climate change has upstaged about every other global issue is without doubt, as even now before the upcoming climate change meeting in Copenhagen, China-now the world’s No. 1 country in total emissions-has suggested that it might indeed take steps to reduce emissions. Now we hear that President Barack Obama will actually go to the climate summit in Copenhagen.

The presence of non-members of the Commonwealth at the current Port of Spain summit must surely also be a departure from the norm and a signal from the broader international community. The issue is therefore now centre stage.

But the problem continues to be somewhat enigmatic in that while all signs such as melting glaciers and sea level rise point to the fact of global warming there is at yet no absolute certainty that it is caused by human activities, although many scientists suggest a high probability that it is, albeit that projections are made principally on the basis of computer modelling.

Moreover there continues to be a measure of scepticism, even amongst scientists, as focus is given principally to carbon dioxide, interestingly a gas essential to photosynthesis in plant life and therefore to the oxygenation of the planet, and to the lives of most animals. Methane and even ordinary water vapour are also greenhouse gases and the former is being released from melting permafrost on account of warming.

Now that the issue is politicised internationally it is perhaps inevitable that some degree of alarmism has been introduced, namely that if we do not reduce emissions to some particular figure we may cross the tipping point of irreversible climate change and set up disaster for humanity. Earth might end up like the planet Mars, a frigid desert, or like Venus with its super-heated atmosphere.

T&T is also in a peculiar position as although it emits a comparatively small fraction of the total emissions in the world it continues to have one of the highest per capita emission levels. It must therefore seem to our visitors to be a highly unusual situation where this country seeks to lecture to others on the perils of human-induced global warming and climate change while it continues on a path of increasing its carbon emissions with aluminium smelters and additional steel plants.

On the other hand there are many scientists abroad as well as locally who suggest that planning should really be aimed at adaptation to inevitable changes in climate, whether human-induced or natural. We might add also that given the history of the planet’s climate of the past few million years consideration might equally well be given to adaptation to another period of world glaciation.