TodaysNetworkNews: MALDIVES: ENVIRONMENTAL REFUGEES & COPENHAGEN (UNEP) (TV MALDIVES) (UNTV)

TodaysNetworkNews: 10 December 2009 - (UNEP) - (UNTV) - (TV MALDIVES) - Few leaders have gone as far as Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed to draw the worlds attention to the dangers of climate change. The two thousand Indian Ocean islands that make up the Maldives lie just 1.5 meters above sea level, and the President says a number of islanders are already being forced from their homes because of rising sea levels.

Before the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, Nasheed convened an underwater cabinet meeting where ministers, communicating with white boards and hand signals, signed a document calling for global cuts in carbon emissions.

SOUNDBITE (English) Mohammed Nasheed, President of the Republic of Maldives:
None of us want to be environmental refugees, so you know we have to be thinking about dry land.

Many low-lying countries have reason to fear for their dry land.

Last year saw 104 globally reported natural disasters, and ninety-nine percent of them were climate related, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). In the Philippines, the recent Typhoon Ketsana (also known as Ondoy) inundated the capital Manila and affected more than 3.1 million people.

SOUNDBITE (English) Margareta Wahlström, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction:
The countries that are most vulnerable in the combination of other factors today are also most vulnerable to the increasing disaster risk, thats the poorest countries and the poorest people in the rich countries.

That is why low-lying countries like Bangladesh have been pushing for a fund to support the adaptation and mitigation strategies. They also need a new legal regime under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Protocol to ensure the social, cultural and economic rehabilitation of climate-induced displaced migrants.

SOUNDBITE (English) Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP):
Latest research shows us that we may within the next 90 years, ie by the end of this century, face a reality where sea levels could rise by up to two meters. That essentially is a death sentence of whole small island nations, communities, cultures, societies that have existed for hundreds, sometimes over a thousand years in their places. . TodaysNetworkNews:
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