With the world’s oceans expected to rise dramatically this century, the new president of the tiny island republic of Maldives is getting proactive about climate change.
The Guardian reports:
The U.N. forecasts that the seas are likely to rise by up to 59cm [nearly two feet] by 2100, due to global warming. Most parts of the Maldives are just 1.5m [five feet] above water. The president said even a “small rise” in sea levels would inundate large parts of the archipelago.
“We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome.”
President Mohamed Nasheed will use tourist revenues to purchase land from other countries, giving his people a place to go if their homes are swallowed up by the waves. The extremely low-lying Maldives islands are especially vulnerable to the rising seas associated with global warming.
Nasheed says he’s already approached the Indian and Sri Lankan governments about buying some of their land, and that they’ve been “receptive” so far. He also says Australia may be a good candidate, because so much of its land is unoccupied. “We do not want to leave the Maldives,” he says, “but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.”
According to Wikipedia, the Maldives is the smallest Asian country by land mass, and the smallest predominantly Muslim country in the world. Of its 1,200 islands, 1,000 are uninhabited. No word on how many will be left in a hundred years’ time, but I’m guessing not many.
Image via National Geographic.
Story via Slashdot.
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