President Praised by Climate Change Activist

Today President Nasheed received plaudits from a prominent climate change activist for the work that the Government of the Maldives is implementing to fight global warming. Speaking in an interview with Minivan News, Bill McKibben, one the world’s foremost campaigners in the battle against carbon emissions, described the President as embodying “rare” leadership capacity, and one who “understands the science… and politics” of climate change. McKibben has asked the President to become a “Messenger” for the 350.org campaign, an offer Nasheed has accepted. In so doing, Nasheed joins a litany of prominent personalities including Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archibishop Desmond Tutu, prominent environmental writer and newspaper columnist, George Monbiot, and philosopher and ‘eco-feminist’ Vandana Shiva in publicizing the work of the campaign. Recognizing that small countries cannot extract political influence through sheer force, or expectations of deference, McKibben praised the President’s strategy of exploiting both “symbolic” and “power politics”: “The one-two punch of announcing a ‘sinking fund’ for the Maldives and announcing this dedication to carbon neutrality – more than any two actions that any Maldivian has ever taken – has put the islands firmly on the political map, on the most important question that human beings have ever faced”, McKibben said. McKibben is currently in the Maldives publicizing a “global day of activism” to pressure parties to the United Nations climate change conference scheduled for October in Copenhagen, Denmark. His ambition is that the governments of the world mutually commit to cutting carbon emissions to 350 carbon dioxide particles per one million particles in the atmosphere, the crucial threshold for maintaining the integrity of polar icecaps. The conference “is our last, or one of our last, chances to get this right”, McKibben told Minivan News. “Copenhagen will be, in some ways, I think, the most important negotiations humans have ever undertaken… If we screw this one up the effects will be felt for geological time”. The President was also honoured in a recent visit to London, where he was presented with a t-shirt by the producers of the film “The Age of Stupid”, at whose “Peoples’ Premiere” he announced, via streaming video, the Maldives’ ambition to become carbon-neutral by 2020. The film’s makers presented the Maldives with a “Not Stupid” certificate and the President with a t-shirt emblazoned with the same moniker. McKibben praised the Maldives and the President by concluding that Male’ “is not London, it’s not Washington, and it’s not Beijing, but it’s an important capital city in this fight”. He said that this “is clearly its role to play internationally, and along with all the things he is doing in this country, clearly the President understands, and has been willing to take it on, as his role to play globally. And we thank him, don’t we?” Bill McKibben will be sharing a platform with Minister of the Environment, Housing and Transport, Mr. Aslam Mohamed at 8:30pm on Tuesday 21 July at Dhoshimeyna Maalam Dharubaargue. The full transcript of McKibben’s interview with Minivan News, can be accessed on the website.