The Riddle of the Maldives
The Maldives is considered one of the nations most vulnerable to rising sea levels. So, why is climate change not a subject of debate here?
It was the positioning for some of the iconic climate policy photos. Within the run-up to the Copenhagen climate negotiations in 2009, President Mohamed Nasheed held a cupboard meeting in scuba gear 20 feet underwater to point out what awaited the low-lying island nation of the Maldives if serious motion weren’t taken to cut back greenhouse gases. Nasheed followed up with a pledge that the Maldives could be the primary carbon neutral country by 2020. The photo went viral and made clear the threat from rising sea levels to low-lying island nations.
An archipelago of small islands south of Sri Lanka, Maldives is the flattest country on earth, the typical height of land just 4 feet above sea level. IPCC models indicate 80% of the islands can be uninhabitable by 2050 and the country submerged by 2100. If any country should care deeply about climate change, it’s the Maldives.
I even have been within the capital, Male, this week helping lead a U.S. Commerce Department workshop for the Maldivian office of the attorney general on international environmental law. While here, I even have asked people about climate change and received a typical but surprising response—folks clearly understand the long-term threat, however it isn’t a subject of debate. As a number one journalist explained to me, “everyone knows that rising sea levels threaten the country, but no politicians discuss it because voters don’t discuss it.”
In some of the vulnerable countries on the earth to climate change, this was not what I expected to listen to, particularly given the vocal leadership of small island states at climate negotiations. Tips on how to explain the difference between the loud voice on the international stage and disinterest domestically?
To be clear, this isn’t a case of climate denial. The threat is well recognized and was a serious public topic just over a decade ago, but not today. (Nasheed was deposed in a coup for unrelated reasons a number of years after the photo.)
A part of the reply likely lies with our human nature to discount future harms by ignoring them or hoping for the perfect. Because the journalist described, people see beaches disappearing on some islands but attribute it to the regular erosion and accretion that has all the time happened.
A part of the reply could also be that there may be nothing the Maldives can do domestically to slow climate change. Their emissions barely move the needle of world CO2 concentrations.
Or it could be because of the shortage of resources to adapt. You see occasional sea partitions and sand bags but the larger problem is that there isn’t a higher land for the population to retreat to. Constructing a big recent island from sand dredging is physically possible—they did just that when constructing the nearby island of Hulhumale – but financially that’s infeasible given how much infrastructure would should be moved.
Having spoken to only a small number of individuals, I realize these thoughts about why climate change has so little political salience listed below are speculation, however the puzzle stays intriguing. Why is the general public more engaged with climate change in London and San Francisco than in a city way more directly in harm’s way?
Or possibly this makes perfect sense. Put simply, if there may be little the Maldivians can do to adapt to climate change within the here and now, possibly the rational plan of action for the local population is to hold on life ignoring the approaching tides. Apres moi, le deluge?
