GIRIFUSHI, Maldives – Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals Saturday at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.
President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor — 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.
"What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world," Nasheed said.
As bubbles floated up from their face masks, the president, vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.
The issue has taken on urgency ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference scheduled for December in Copenhagen. At that meeting countries will negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol with aims to cut the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide that scientists blame for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Wealthy nations want broad emissions cuts from all countries, while poorer ones say industrialized countries should carry most of the burden.
Dozens of Maldives soldiers guarded the event Saturday, but the only intruders were groupers and other fish.
Nasheed had already announced plans for a fund to buy a new homeland for his people if the 1,192 low-lying coral islands are submerged. He has promised to make the Maldives, with a population of 350,000, the world's first carbon-neutral nation within a decade.
"We have to get the message across by being more imaginative, more creative and so this is what we are doing," he said in an interview on a boat en route to the dive site.
Nasheed, who has emerged as a key, and colorful, voice on climate change, is a certified diver, but the others had to take diving lessons in recent weeks.
Three ministers missed the underwater meeting because two were not given medical permission and another was abroad.
Maldives cabinet flags climate crisis at undersea meet
Mohamed Shahyb Yahoo News 17 Oct 09;
MALE (AFP) – The Maldives' government held an underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday in a bid to focus global attention on rising sea levels that threaten to submerge the low-lying atoll nation.
President Mohamed Nasheed plunged first into the Indian Ocean followed by his ministers, all clad in scuba gear, for the nationally televised meeting in this archipelago known as an idyllic holiday getaway for the rich.
Nasheed and his deputy, Mohamed Waheed, and a dozen ministers sat behind tables arranged in a horseshoe at a depth of six metres (20 feet) and approved a resolution urging global action to cut carbon emissions.
Tropical reef fish swam among the ministers and the nation's red and green flag with white crescent moon was planted in the seabed behind Nasheed.
After surfacing, he called for the UN's climate summit in Copenhagen in December to forge a deal to reduce carbon emissions blamed for rising sea levels that experts say could swamp the Maldives by the century's end.
"We should come out of Copenhagen with a deal that will ensure that everyone will survive," said the 42-year-old president as he bobbed in the shimmering turquoise waters.
He said there was "less talk" during the half-hour underwater meeting, but he had managed to get more work done.
"The Maldives is a frontline state and what happens to us today will happen to others tomorrow," Nasheed said.
Asked how he felt about taking the cabinet for a splash, he replied they had all enjoyed the plunge into the clear, warm waters.
"The president, vice president, and the cabinet signed a declaration calling for concerted global action on climate change, ahead of the UN climate conference," the president's office said in a statement.
The ministers signed the resolution, printed on a white board, using water-proof markers.
They had taken diving lessons for the last two months and were accompanied by their trainers at the unprecedented underwater meeting off the islet of Girifushi.
The dive was the latest publicity stunt by the media-savvy Nasheed to focus world attention on climate change and its effects on the Maldives ahead of the Copenhagen meeting.
In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that an increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimetres (seven to 24 inches) would make the country virtually uninhabitable by 2100.
Nasheed, the archipelago's first democratically elected president, stunned the world last year when he announced he wanted to buy a homeland to relocate the threatened Maldives.
More than 80 percent of the the tiny nation, famed as a tourist paradise due to its coral reefs and white-sand beaches, is less than a metre (3.3 feet) above sea level.
Only Nasheed and his defence minister Ameen Faisel had any diving experience before the president came up with the plan for the underwater meeting, officials said.
Government spokeswoman Aminath Shauna said the ministers had signed their wetsuits and these would be auctioned on a protectmaldives.com website due to be launched at the weekend to raise money for coral reef protection.
"All the arrangements went ahead well," she said, adding the ministers would ride bicycles around the capital island, Male, next week as a further sign of their commitment to cutting emissions.
Maldives sends climate SOS with undersea cabinet
Maryam Omidi, Reuters 17 Oct 09;
MALE (Reuters) - The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the tropical archipelago's existence.
Aiming for another attention-grabbing event to bring the risks of climate change into relief before a landmark U.N. climate change meeting in December, President Mohamed Nasheed's cabinet headed to the bottom of a turquoise lagoon.
Clad in black diving suits and masks, Nasheed, 11 ministers the vice president and cabinet secretary dove 3.8 meters (12 feet, 8 inches) to gather at tables under the crystalline waters that draw thousands of tourists to $1,000-a-night luxury resorts.
As black-and-white striped Humbug Damselfish darted around a backdrop of white coral, Nasheed gestured with his hands to start the 30-minute meeting, state TV showed.
"We are trying to send our message to let the world know what is happening and what will happen to the Maldives if climate change isn't checked," a dripping Nasheed told reporters as soon as he re-emerged from the water.
The archipelago nation off the tip of India, best-known for
luxury tropical hideaways and unspoiled beaches, is among the most threatened by rising seas. If U.N. predictions are correct, most of the low-lying Maldives will be submerged by 2100.
"SOS" MESSAGE
Nasheed and the ministers used a white plastic slate and waterproof pencils to sign an "SOS" message from the Maldives during the 30-minute meeting.
"We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises," the message said. "Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth."
World leaders will meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and industrialized nations want all countries to impose sharp emissions cuts.
"We have to have a better deal. We should be able to come out with an amicable understanding that everyone survives. If Maldives can't be saved today, we do not feel that there is much of a chance for the rest of the world," he said.
The developing world wants rich countries to shoulder most of the burden, on the grounds they contributed most to the problem.
Nasheed and the cabinet trained for two weeks and were assisted by professional divers to pull off his latest eye-catching move related to climate change.
Nasheed, barely a month after entering office last year, declared he would establish a sovereign fund to relocate his country's 350,000 people if sea levels rise, but later admitted it was not feasible given the state of the Maldivian economy.
Earlier this year, he vowed to make the Maldives carbon neutral within a decade by switching to renewable energy and offsetting carbon emissions caused by tourists flying to the Maldives.
(Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Bryson Hull and Alex Richardson)