While assessing the damage caused by Hurricane Melissa on Thursday past, Deputy Prime Minister, the Hon. Chester Cooper spoke about the impact of climate change on small island states like The Bahamas.

Mr. Cooper told reporters, “we look at the devastation in Jamaica. When we look at the severity of the hurricane itself, the strength of the gusts. I believe I saw a report somewhere that the winds gusted in the 240 plus mile per hour wind, that is serious. That’s, I believe, record breaking in terms of what we’ve seen before and its not normal by any means. So something is happening whether we believe that the climate change issue is a hoax or not there are certain realities that manifest themselves in these monster hurricanes.”

During an address at the United Nations recently, US President Donald Trump called climate change the greatest scam of all time. Mr. Cooper said the science can’t be denied and called on the international community especially developed countries to do their part. He said, “we live this when it becomes our way of life, its no game. And we want the world to understand that we are not contributing negatively to the overall ecosystem, the overall environment and we’re asking the world to do their share, do their part in helping us to mitigate against these severe climate issues and these climate systems that are seemingly becoming more and more severe.”

Hurricane Melissa passed through The Bahamas as a category two storm last week.