New Delhi, Oct 22 (Inditop.com) The president of a country that may soon cease to exist made an impassioned plea for survival here Thursday. “We don’t want to trade our paradise for an environmental refugee camp,” Maldives President Mohammad Nasheed said.
Delivering the keynote address at the inauguration of the two-day Delhi conference on green technology development and transfer, Nasheed appealed to India to help his country survive the rising seas that threaten to engulf the Maldives archipelago. The sea is rising due to global warming.
“In every battle, you have front lines,” Nasheed said. “Today, I report from the Maldives, a front line state in the fight against climate change. The Maldives is just 1.5 meters above sea level. So we are extremely vulnerable to rising and warming seas, that threaten to submerge our country and kill our coral reefs.
“For the Maldives, climate change is no vague or abstract irritation, but a clear and present danger to our very existence… We don’t want to trade paradise for an environmental refugee camp.”
Nasheed warned: “What happens to us today, happens to the rest of the world tomorrow. Nowhere is this warning more apt than in India. For this country is home to some of the world’s most dangerous climate tipping points: the Indian monsoon and the Himalayan glaciers….
“It is easy to think that climate change is like any other international issue… But the fact of the matter is, you cannot negotiate with the laws of physics. We cannot cut a deal with mother nature.”
The Maldives president made it clear he was not suggesting people cut consumption and give up the good life. “I am suggesting that we cut out carbon, and consume renewables instead.”
He quoted a Global Humanitarian Forum estimate that climate change is now killing 300,000 people every year. “If temperatures continue to soar, this death toll will rise exponentially. And… when millions start to suffer because of climate change, it is people in the developing world – in countries like India and the Maldives – who will die first.”
Nasheed made a plea to bring the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere down to 350 parts per million from the present 387. For that, he added: “Here is the inconvenient truth: we need to peak global emissions, not in 10, 20 or 50 years, but now.”
As India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh swivelled his chair around to listen to Nasheed more carefully, the Maldives president said he found it “both exciting and inspiring to hear about India’s proposed $20 billion solar plan. And we are extremely keen to work with Indian companies to develop renewable energy projects in the Maldives….”
“The Maldives and India have always enjoyed a very special relationship… And so it is to India, that we make this climate appeal… It is my firm belief that you can lead other nations in renewable energy. In doing so, India can become the great protector of our most precious common asset: planet Earth.”
