RECENT episodes of severe flooding across the country rattled many of us. The shocking force of the deluge seemed almost apocalyptic. Churning, animated torrents effortlessly swept away vehicles, leaving a trail of destruction and mouths agape.

While severe flooding isn't a new feature of life here, that these events will likely become far more frequent and devastating is, perhaps, less appreciated.

Across the globe, the ominous march of climate change is being felt. Symptoms of a warming planet have many manifestations - fire, flood, famine; all that biblical stuff. Man-made global greenhouse-gas emissions are throwing the planet dangerously out of balance. The burning of fossil fuels at current levels to propel our lives, ambitions and ceaseless scrolling will make this world wildly inhospitable.

One of the major outflows of the Paris climate agreement of 2015 was a commitment by 200 nations to contain the rise in global temperatures to two degrees C - preferably 1.5 degrees.

There is, however, consensus among some scientists that this objective is already a lost cause - certainly in the short to medium term. Additionally, there are climate researchers convinced that even if those temperature targets were to be met, the cumulative effects of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming are 'locked in.' There is no unringing of the climate change bell, as it were.

That's why there is such strong emphasis in the scientific community on mitigation and adaptation - adjusting life to a warmer world and all the attendant consequences.

It isn't the sunniest of horizons to confront, but it's a future we must face in the Caribbean right now.

Sea-level rise is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, except with climate change there are more than four.

With a conservative projection of sea-level rise pegged at more than three millimetres per year worldwide, low-lying small-island states are burdened with unique challenges.

Indeed, alarm bells over the menace currently lapping at our shores were sounded as far back as 1994 at a conference I attended in Barbados. The Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small-Island Developing States was a follow-up to the Agenda 21 programme adopted during the Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

At the SIDS conference, one of the objectives was "to adopt measures which will enable small-island developing states to cope with environmental change and mitigate impacts and reduce threats posed to marine and coastal resources."

In TT we're already experiencing the fallout of global warming. Coastal communities will be severely affected by rising sea levels. Apart from accelerated coastal erosion and inundation in severe storms, we will have to make our peace with increasingly violent weather producing more destructive deluges.

There is of course the ever-present threat of socio-economic ruin from extreme weather events. Without preparation for this emerging world, however, there will also