Maldives Cabinet Meets Underwater to Highlight Climate Change

New Delhi
17 October 2009

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Maldivian President Mohammed Nasheed signs a document calling on all countries to cut down their carbon dioxide emissions, in Girifushi, Maldives, 17 Oct 2009
In an effort to highlight climate change, the Cabinet of the government of the Maldives, an Indian island nation, has held a meeting under water.

Meetings of government ministers can sometimes be a dry affair. That certainly was not the case during the latest gathering of the Cabinet of the Maldives.

President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers, plus the vice president and Cabinet secretary, donned scuba gear and plunged six meters below the shimmering turquoise surface of an Indian Ocean lagoon.

The Cabinet seated behind tables, amid a coral backdrop, used hand gestures to communicate.

The president is a certified diver but other Cabinet members had to take lessons in recent weeks to prepare for the unprecedented meeting.

One resolution was approved - a declaration calling for concerted global action on climate change ahead of a major United Nations conference on the subject scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

The ministers used waterproof markers to sign the document, printed on a white board.

President Nasheed, surfacing to speak with reporters, said he hopes his unusual Cabinet meeting will prompt global action.

"We want to see that everyone else is also occupied as much as we are [with climate change] and would like to see that people actually do something about it," he said. "If Maldives cannot be saved today we do not feel that there is not much of a chance for the rest of the world."

It is feared that rising sea levels could submerge the country this century.

President Nasheed has previously announced plans to buy a new homeland for his country's 350,000 citizens if the Maldives does eventually disappear below the waves.

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source: VOA News

Well for 35000 years the sea has gone up 3/4" per year and it will for the next few thousand I am sure! Remember Jimmy Peanut Carter, he went to the UN in the 70's saying "The Maldives would be under water by 1990 unless we did something"! Well???? As the Dutch to help! They figured it out a long time ago! The earth will do what the earth will do and throwing money at it will just add to corruption by officials looking for control and hand outs! All BS! BTW in the last 100 years it has gone up 3/4"!