CorpComms Magazine

Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldives, has completed the world's first underwater cabinet meeting as part of a public relations programme to highlight the problem of climate change.

The Maldivian cabinet are trying to persuade the UN summit in Copenhagen to cap carbon emissions that cause global warming.

Last month Nasheed warned that any action short of a global treaty on greenhouse gas reductions would be 'signing a death warrant' for the people of Maldives.

Scientists have warned that the Maldives, which is made up of 1,192 coral islands, could be submerged by rising sea levels within 100 years. About 80 per cent of its islands are less than one metre above sea level.

Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected president, his vice president, Cabinet secretary and 11 ministers held a meeting six metres underwater in a turquoise lagoon off Girifushi, around a horse-shoe shaped table, while colourful parrot fish swam around them.

They signed a joint agreement, with waterproof markers, which read: 'We must unite in a global effort to halt further temperature rises. Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth.'

Nasheed added: 'If we can't save the Maldives today, you can't save the rest of the world tomorrow. What do we hope to achieve? We hope not to die. I hope I can live in the Maldives and raise my grandchildren here.'

The president, a former journalist who was imprisoned for six years by the previous president, is a certified diver but other Cabinet members had to take lessons to prepare for the meeting.

He has previously announced plans to buy a new homeland for Maldive's 350,000 residents if the islands do disappear beneath the waves. The Maldives is also expected to be the first country to go carbon neutral, with a target date of 2020.

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet