Monday saw the opening of a long awaited United Nations conference on climate change in Paris, where heads of government from all over the world have given themselves a Dec. 12 deadline to sign a new agreement on emissions reductions and other measures to limit global temperature increase.

Caribbean leaders including St. Lucia Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony, Caricom’s lead head of government on climate change, are at the conference advocating action to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to global temperatures before the industrial age.

“For small-island developing states like ours, the science has shown that any long-term global temperature increase above 1.5 degrees Celsius would be catastrophic,” Dr. Anthony said in a message issued Monday.

Scientists say the global temperature has already increased by one degree Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, and that if greenhouse gas emissions stay at current levels, the temperature will…