Small island's warning went unheeded

IPS: When the president of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, addressed the U.N. General Assembly about 20 years ago, he warned of the possible death of his tiny Indian Ocean island if steps were not taken to curb climate change. At an expert panel discussion on climate change last week, the Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdullah Shahid asked a logical question: "Why have the warnings of the past 20 years gone unheeded?"

A nation consisting of around 1,190 individual islands, the Maldives is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change as most of the islands are only 1-2 metres above sea level. According to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sea level rise caused by global warming is very likely to exacerbate storm surges and coastal erosion of small islands.

Such events damage the infrastructure of human settlements and have numerous adverse health and economic effects. Fresh water resources and agricultural soil is contaminated, marine ecosystems which support fisheries are polluted, and non-indigenous invasive species spread throughout these islands.

…The Maldives have taken measures to mitigate the effects of climate change, including the construction of a 60-million-dollar concrete sea wall around the capital of Male and the construction of an artificial island that stands well above sea-level. However, these efforts are not a permanent solution and if climate change continues to accelerate at its current pace, the Maldives may not survive…

Nevit Dilman took this picture of the Maldives, Wikimedia Commons, under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, Version 1.2