COPENHAGEN (AlertNet) Â? Mohamed Nasheed, the president of the Maldives, has done his best to draw the world's attention to the plight of his low-lying atoll nation, at risk of being submerged by climate change-related sea level rise.
He's held an underwater cabinet meeting as an attention-getting stunt. He's declared his Indian Ocean nation's intention to cut its own carbon emissions by 100 percent within 10 years, and hosted a summit to urge other vulnerable nations to do the same.
This week he's in Copenhagen to push a few key messages: carbon-neutral development doesn't have to cost more, local efforts to adapt to the effects of climate change work best, and climate-vulnerable countries need a deal from Copenhagen negotiators that will help them successfully adapt to and survive the changes that are coming.
"We are very clear on what we want from Copenhagen," Nasheed said during a panel discussion at the climate talks.
"We should be able to go home and tell our people, 'YouÂ?re going to be around for the next century'."
For the Maldives, "the bottom line is dry land," he said.
The atoll nation has over the last decade spent $400 million building a heavy sea wall around its capital, Male. The wall helped hold off the waves of the devastating 2005 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, saving lives.
But not all vulnerable nations have as many resources as the Maldives, with its economy driven by high-end tourism. To effectively adapt to climate change, Nasheed said, countries will need to find "more viable, cheaper" options than simply ever-higher concrete walls.
Those looking for ideas should start in the affected communities themselves, where people have long experience dealing with extreme events, the president said.
"Local solutions are far, far cheaper than internationally imposed solutions by consultants," he said. "We should rely a lot more on ourselves."
CHEAPER TO BE GREEN
He urged vulnerable countries to push hard themselves to adopt low-emission technologies, including wind, solar and ocean current-driven power, saying such a move could not only help stem climate change but create jobs.
"There's a lack of understanding of the economic benefits we can get by going for renewable and greener technologies," he said. "We believe it's cheaper to be green, more economically profitable and sensible to be green."
Efforts to cut emissions don't have to cramp development, he said.
"What you need is transport, not coal," he urged listeners, many from developing countries. "What you need is energy, not necessarily diesel. What you need is development, not carbon. As long as we can have development through renewable sources we can be in a much better situation."
He expressed frustration at the slow pace of climate change negotiations and the lack of action to cut emissions worldwide, saying his country had resorted to stunts like the recent underwater cabinet meeting in an effort "to impress on people the seriousness of the issue."
If sea level rise swamps the Maldives, "I can move," he said. "But you can't take all the butterflies. You can't take the language. You can't take the culture. You can't take the songs. You can't take everything that is you."
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
