Following on the pledge earlier this month by China and the US to work more closely together to fight global warming, we are carefully observing how they will follow up, especially at this week’s United Nations climate summit in Dubai.

China and the US are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases that are fuelling the climate crisis. As such, it is important and encouraging that both countries have started interacting on this most worrisome issue as they can make significant contributions to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, and thus lead other large countries in honouring the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But talk, as we all know, is cheap, and world leaders have been talking and talking about this problem for years now with very little to point to, in terms of policies, to combat this ever-worsening problem.

Last month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) cautioned that energy policies must evolve if global warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Demand for fossil fuels, the IEA pointed out, is set to remain far too high to keep the goal of the Paris Agreement within reach.

“This risks not only worsening climate impacts after a year of record-breaking heat, but also undermining the security of the energy system, which was built for a cooler world with less extreme weather events,” the IEA said in its annual report.

However, the IEA did point out that bending the emissions curve onto a path consistent with 1.5 degrees Celsius remains possible, but very difficult. There is urgent need, therefore, for substantive policy changes worldwide, failing which the agency has forecast that global average temperatures could rise by around 2.4 degrees Celsius this century.

The danger of that possibility was highlighted in data released by the United Nations Development Programme and the Climate Impact Lab yesterday, showing that by 2100 climate change is expected to cause the submergence of a significant share of land in a number of countries, among them The Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, and Seychelles.

According to that report, the rise in sea levels brought about by climate change has exposed land that is home to more than 14 million people to the risk of a 20-year flood since the first decade of this century.

Coastal cities, such as Santos in Brazil; Cotonou, Benin; and Kolkata, India, we are told, will face increased flood risk by mid-century. Additionally, the report warned, many low-lying regions along the coasts of Latin America, Africa, and south-east Asia may face a severe threat of permanent inundation — part of an alarming trend with the potential to trigger a reversal in human development in coastal communities worldwide.

Despite the fact that small island developing states (SIDS), including Jamaica, account for less than one per cent of global emissions, we are at risk of further environmental damage if things continue on the current path.

It is therefore necessary for the SIDS delegates attending COP28 in Dubai to continue pressing the developed countries, which contribute 80 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, to start phasing out fossil fuels with the aim of getting to net zero by 2050.