President Mohamed Nasheed launched a vigorous assault on the current wave of climate change skepticism during his address at the Freie Universität in Berlin.
“In my mind there is a diabolical conspiracy to cloud the scientific evidence behind climate change,” he said. “The science is very clear and sorted, but there are vested interests trying to cloud the issue.”
The president was particularly critical of the hacked emails from the Climate Change Unit at the University of East Anglia, which he argued “make no material difference to the fact climate change is happening.”
“It is now so necessary to find out who distributed the emails, who hacked it, where they are placed, how the emails made the rounds, and how they became newspaper headlines. Where is the investigative journalism on the criminal element of it all?” he asked.
“And why are the emails such a big issue when there is no substance in them? I’ve read them all and they don’t add up. I believe there is a conspiracy, and I believe responsible journalists should think about who is behind this, who is this devil?”
Nasheed was also critical of the coverage surrounding inaccuracies in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which consolidates much of the accepted climate change science.
“Any report can have factual errors but that does not make any substantial difference to the facts,” he said. “Even if one page of a 1000 page report [is problematic], you cannot then deny the other 999 pages.”
He accused the media of being complicit in the loss of momentum around climate change following the lacklustre Copenhagen Accord, claiming that continual reference to the email scandal and mistakes in the IPCC report in articles on climate change was “clouding the issue and creating doubt in the general public.”
“We have to get rid of the perception that there something wrong with the science, and we need to pick up the momentum we had at Copenhagen,” Nasheed urged.
“Icecaps are melting, sea levels are rising, the weather is unpredictable, and rain and fish do not appearing at the same time they used to. European friends tell me they have experienced the coldest winter in the last 20-25 years, and by summer I predict they will be saying they’ve had the hottest summer in the last 30 years. We should not doubt the science in front of us – please visit the Maldives and have a look what happening to our beaches, our coral reefs and our oceans. There is no doubt.”
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Indeed a lot is happening to our environment and President Nasheed is one of the biggest threats to it. Just like his predecessor, Nasheed talks about environment protection overseas and does the opposite at home - his cal for the lifting of the decades old ban on longlining in the Maldives, is one such example.
"make no material difference to the fact climate change is happening."
What the hell? The leaked emails make all the difference to the data that's supposed to support those facts.
Mohamed: Long line fishing has nothing to do with climate change. Stay on topic.
@ Mohamed: Long lining is not in any way new to Maldives. It is purse-seining or 'dhaa elhun' that was banned. Previously it was mostly international companies who were licensed to long-line in the EEZ as foreign investments and the Maldivian government, through the Foreign Investment Services Bureau at the Trade Ministry, took a royalty from them.
The President definitely practices what he preaches! He walks to work each day and if security allows him to, he walks to most engagements that he can.
This administration has taken steps to lower emissions so that you don't develop asthma just from walking down a Male' street (let alone if ur on a bike/motorcycle stuck behind one of those horrid polluting big trucks) and this administration has applied environmentally friendly principles to a national development framework.
We practice what we preach, unlike our predecessors who called for environmental leadership, but polluted left, right and center. This government is taking steps to address the garbage crisis at Thilafushi, waste management in the islands, the coral dying in the ocean, and widespread erosion.
Mohamed, who said long lining was banned? In fact it is the present government who has stopped giving license to the long liners!
I'm very impressed by the hard work President Nasheed is doing on climate issue, facing all the challenges!!
Anonymouse coward: Destruction of our marine environment is inevitably linked to the impact of climate change on our islands.
Salim: President Nasheed would not be encouraging local fishermen to take up longlining, one of the most environmentally destructive methods of fishing, if he was a man who practices what he preaches. When you say "we practice what we preach" do you mean that you are a member of the country's executive?
your country is in a mess n we dont feel safe to live here..pls come back n do your job..let a bigger country take control of the environment...stop bluffing us..enuf is enuf