Rather than asking people to cut down on emission, sacrifice, why not ask them to invest in clean energy?” asks Mohamed Nasheed, former president of the Indian Ocean archipelago
Nivedita Khandekar
New Delhi : Faced with the threat of rising sea level due to climate change gobbling up his entire country, former Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed suggested a paradigm change in the global fight against climate change and also committed to an increased action back home to cut down on native emissions.
Reminding that carbon emissions keep rising and rising while the world seems to be just talking and talking, Nasheed observed that “half of the problem is we still call for emission cuts.”
“Countries are reluctant to cuts because they equate making cuts with making sacrifice. And no political leader likes to make sacrifice. You don’t win elections on a platform of making cuts. So, instead of asking for making cuts, perhaps we should be demanding increase. Increase in investments in green / clean energy, huge increase in clean energy,” Nasheed said at the public lecture ‘Climate Change: The Way Ahead’ at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) here on Thursday.
“Let us demand something positive rather than something negative. We should ask the countries to invest so much into clean energy that they stop investing in fossil fuels. We need to reframe what the climate talks are demanding,” he suggested.
Ten years ago, climate change was ethical issues, now it is an economical issue, he said, adding, “It is very difficult to sell an ethical issue to a vast majority of people. Unless it has an economic argument or strategic interest in it, it does not work.”
His fervent appeal for renegotiating the manner in which United Nations Climate Change talks are held stemmed out from the fact that his home country, Maldives barely has a population of less than 4,00,000 across 298 sq kms of area spread over 2000-plus big and small islands and 26 main atolls with the highest point at just six feet above mean sea level. The coral reefs that protect Maldives islands and provide them fish food face extension by ever higher ocean temperatures. Then there is the imminent long-term threat of submergence by the rising sea level, which in turn would be a consequence of melting arctic ice-cover due.
As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries across the globe have agreed to cut down on carbon emissions as part of their voluntary Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). These are basically long-term attempts at keeping the global temperature rise to well below 2 degree Celsius (compared to the pre-industrial era level) even when keenly pursuing to limit it to 1.5 degree Celsius.
Although with much lesser per capita emissions, the developing countries bear most of the brunt of the climate change as compared to developed countries. As part of the Green Climate Fund and under several other heads, the rich nations are supposed to pay for the mitigation and adaptation efforts of the poor nations, an act hard to come by for the rich.
In view of the increasing instances of extreme weather events, for Maldives, climate change “is not just an environmental issue, it is a natural security threat, it is an existential emergency.”
Calling for adaptation measures to tackle the grave problem of climate change, Nasheed cited past examples of building sea-walls, water breakers and other very heavy engineering, which essentially meant pouring concrete. But building a concrete sea walls is extremely costly and also damages the coral reef. “We must learn to work with nature and not against it. We don’t need concrete sea walls that destroy coral reefs but soft but smart adaptation strategies. We must build sea walls that encourage coral growth. Mangroves can protect us from such storms, even better than man made barriers,” he pointed out.
Nasheed further asserted how this year, as part of “our commitment on the UNFCCC – United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – process to stop climate change, the Maldives will strengthen its nationally determined commitment under the Paris Agreement. The new target will be based on new Maldivian president to aggressively adopt solar power and renewable energy.”
Concerns about UNFCCC process :
Openly expressing his concerns regarding the UNFCCC climate talks, the former Maldivian leader termed there are “serious problems with the way the talks are set up” and drew attention to how “it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the talks have become part of the problem. I have been watching the climate change negotiations since 2009. Over the past 10 years, nothing much has changed in the UN process. We are still using the same old dinosaur language, still saying the
same old words, still making the same tedious points, the same old diplomats who don’t seem to agree on any point other than having another round of talks 12 months later are still there.”
Fight for democracy and against climate change same :
Nasheed, the first elected president of Maldives was jailed in 2012 by his adversaries and later went on to take political asylum in the UK only to return last year after another democratically elected president took over. Referring to his prison, Nasheed said, “The fight for democracy and against climate change are one and the same struggle. How many autocrats are dependent on oil revenues to prop up their violent regimes? How many of those who damage established democracies are also climate deniers?”
“We Maldivians are a nation of survivors and we will do everything we can for the survival of our country. But we will survive as a nation only if we survive as a planet. So, let us join; commit to a clean energy future and make investments in clean energy our blueprint for survival,” he concluded.
Former Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh was among those present in the audience.
“Trump does not matter”
Nasheed answered wide-ranging questions after his 20-odd minutes speech. In reply to a question about what can be done after the USA pulled puled of Paris Agreement, President Donald Trump has been a known climate change denier, about climate change and how big polluters from the west have not been upfront in paying for it, he said, “Adaptation is very costly. We need money for it. But the rich countries do not agree, the USA does not agree. How do we talk to Trump? Why do we talk to Trump about it? Trump does not matter”.
Praise for India
After recalling how at the Climate Conference at Copenhagen in 2009, Maldives and India found themselves on opposite sides of the climate debate, Nasheed said, “Among all the gloom and doom, we find hope. For me, one of the biggest rays of hope is India.”
“Thankfully India’s position has completely changed today. It is clear that India cares about safeguarding our planet and protecting its neighbours in South Asia. When we see India helping on climate change, when we see India acting constructively at climate talks, when we see India investing in billions in clean energy such as solar and nuclear energy, then we know India is taking our security seriously.”
Citing Maldives own example for “a low-carbon development manifesto”, he said, “We won the last Maldives election on green manifesto. I believe, the next Indian election can be won on the low-carbon development strategy.”