“Three years ago, thanks to its enterprising president, the Maldives was leading a global climate change response,” writes Simon Usborne for the UK’s Independent newspaper.
“Now, that president is out of office, living under armed guard, and watching his country wilt under the threat of extremism and rising sea levels.”
“What went wrong? How did a fêted president once compared to Nelson Mandela go from Cameron’s guestlist to a safehouse in Malé, and what does it mean for his country’s perilous position in the race to slow down climate change?
To answer these questions, I came to meet the former president as well as journalists and activists who warn that politics and religious extremism are not only threatening democracy and lives here but, as one editor puts it, ‘forcing the environmental issue on to the fossil-fuelled back burner’.”
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