Tag: climate change

New climate change models for Maldives predict rising sea temperatures

The Regional Integrated Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (RIMES) has completed a nine-month research into developing a model interpreting the future climatic change scenarios for the Maldives that can provide projections which can referred during national and local development planning.

RIMES, based in Bangkok, provides regional early warning services and capacity building to its member states in Africa and Asia – including Maldives- in the end-to-end early warning of tsunami and hydro-meteorological hazards.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Dr  Govindarajalu Srinivasan, technical adviser-climate applications and research, who headed the research in Maldives, explained that “we tried to interpret the scenarios of future climate change for the Maldivian context”.

He noted that the existing global climate change models (GCMs) which are the most important tools to study climate change and make projections, do not provide descriptions for regional or local scale.

Therefore, he revealed that the GCMs were statistically downscaled, and prior reports addressing climate change concerns for Maldives were examined to “generate a high a resolution climate change scenario for Maldives”.

Analysis was also done to look at the extreme climate change risks for the Maldives, Dr Srinivasan added.

He also observed that 13 participants from the Maldives Meteorological Services (MMS) and the Environment Ministry were trained in the last leg of the project to analyse extreme climate events linked to temperature and rainfall changes.

State Minister for Housing and Environment Dr Mohamed Shareef added that the findings of the program and trainees’ recommendations will be used in the ministry’s decision making process.

Although the details on the findings of the research were not revealed to the press, Dr.Shareef added that the ministry has received an initial draft and a final report will be submitted by the RIMES soon, which will be publicised at a later date.

In a press statement issued on Thursday the ministry pointed out that the present findings also suggest that the sea level, sea surface temperature, rainfall and its variations pose future climate risks for Maldives.

“Future climate change scenarios inherently represent a set of likely climate futures. Sea Surface Temperature parameter inferred directly from GCMs show a steady increase in temperatures up to 2080, the statement reads.

However, the ministry noted that more focused research is recommended to understand the projected sea level changes and better observational network are required to characterize the unique climatological settings of the Maldives.

The project commissioned to RIMES is a component “Integrating Climate Change Risks into Resilient Island Planing in the Maldives”, 2010- 2014 – a government initiative which seeks to ensure that climate change risks are integrated into resilient island planning and that governments and communities are able to prioritize and implement climate change adaptation.

UNDP, a large contributor to the project, says that the most serious underlying driver of increasing vulnerability to climate change in the Maldives is the “absence of systematic adaptation planning and practice”.

“Climate change risks and long-term resilience are not adequately integrated into island land use planning or into coastal development and protection policies and practice, and past autonomous risk reduction efforts have sometimes had mal-adaptive effects” an entry on the UNDP website reads.

UNDP also highlights that small, low-lying atoll islands of Maldives are highly vulnerable to flooding and coastal erosion: “More than 44 percent of settlements, including 42 percent of the population, and more than 70 percent of all critical infrastructures are located within 100 meters of shoreline. Intensive rainfall, storm surges and swell waves are expected to be aggravated through sea level rise and climate change effects on weather patterns. This will compound underlying trends of increasing coastal erosion and pressure on scarce land resources, and increase physical vulnerability of island populations, infrastructure and livelihood assets.”

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Greenpeace leader expelled as Durban talks overtime

Greenpeace International Executive Leader Kumi Naidoo was peacefully expelled from discussions along with several dozen protestors calling for decisive action at the United Nations’ Climate Change conference at Durban, which extended into overtime today.

Naidoo had led an occupation of the hallway outside the convention center’s plenary room; the center was officially deemed UN territory for the duration of the talks.

The occupation began several hours prior to Naidoo’s removal when the Maldives’ Environmental Minister Mohamed Aslam joined Naidoo and approximately 100 youth calling for immediate action on climate change.

According to a rush transcript issued by website democracynow.org, Aslam addressed the crowd with the following words during a call-and-response demonstration:

“You need to save us. The islands can’t sink. We have our rights. We have a right to live. We have a right for home. You can’t decide our destiny. We will have to be saved.”

Minivan News was unable to reach the minister at time of press.

Speaking to journalists after being removed from the area, Naidoo said the talks were heading towards a “completely unacceptable” outcome.

“What we see here are baby steps. Baby steps is not what the situation calls for — it calls for fundamental change,” he told AFP reporters.

In an interview with CCTV News’ James Chau, Aslam and Naidoo were asked to comment on the conference’s progress.

“We’re nowhere there yet,” said Aslam, while Naidoo added more emphatically, “we are sleepwalking into a crisis of epic proportions.”

When asked about critics who oppose the reality of climate change, Aslam offered an invitation: “Come to the Maldives, have a look yourself.”

Naidoo said he wasn’t surprised at the developed world’s hesitancy to approve a new agreement.

“When you look at the amount of money that the fossil fuel companies in the US put into contaminating the global public conversation, it’s much much more than the GDP of Maldives,” he said.

Offering motivation, Naidoo said that many groups are lobbying in favor of climate change and that the issue would supercede other concerns, such as economic recession, in the long run. “The only race that will matter is not the space race or the arms race, its the green race.”

One of the leading debates at the conference has been whether developing nations should be held to the same standards as developed nations in cutting carbon emissions.

India, China and the USA have lately been viewed as roadblocks to the adoption of the European Union’s legally binding treaty on cutting carbon emissions, which would be signed by 2015 and come into force by 2020.

The treaty is designed to build on earlier agreements under the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire at the end of 2012.

India’s environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan today criticised developed countries for resisting binding agreements while pressuring developing nations to address climate change.

“I was astonished and disturbed by the comments of my colleague from Canada who was pointing at us as to why we are against the roadmap,” she was reported saying by the Press Trust of India. “I am disturbed to find that a legally binding protocol to the Convention, negotiated just 14 years ago is now being junked in a cavalier manner.

“Countries which had signed and ratified it are walking away without even a polite goodbye,” she said. “And yet, pointing at others.”

EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard has expressed concern over the prolonged discussions, but said there was still a chance of an agreement.

“Now it’s not the first time in a COP that [by] Thursday night you’d not have the deal,” she told Voice of America. “So that is why I emphasise there still is time to move and I must say there have been a lot of constructive talks.”

The EU has issued a joint statement with a grouping of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the Association of Small Island States in support of the EU proposal and requesting ambitious action from other countries.

The conference, which began on November 28 and was scheduled through December 3, is attended by 194 nations.

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Rush to renewables stems as much from energy security and economic consideration: President Nasheed

As Europe and the US remain distracted by economic turmoil, an unlikely band of nations is taking up the climate cause: the small, the poor and the vulnerable, writes President of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, for the UK’s Financial Times.
There are many reasons why poorer countries adopt tough greenhouse gas mitigation targets. My country, the Maldives, announced its 2020 carbon neutral target in part to cajole industrial behemoths to clean up their act. If a small nation with modest means can enact a radical plan for carbon-free energy, what excuse do larger, wealthier nations have for dragging their feet?
Environmentalism, though, is only half the story. For many developing nations, particularly far-flung, small-island states, the rush to renewables stems as much from energy security and economic considerations as from climate.
Many developing countries are among the world’s most energy insecure. Their economies run on imported oil and they are held hostage to an oil price over which they have no control. Fossil fuel addiction puts a brake on economic development.
The Maldives spends 14 per cent of gross domestic product on diesel imports – more than on education and healthcare combined. If we continue “business-as-usual” growth, our oil dependency will double by 2020.
As the oil price climbs, the cost of renewable energy such as solar is falling rapidly. Thanks in part to large increases in Chinese productive capacity, solar photovoltaic modules are about half the price they were in 2008. Daytime solar power in the Maldives is now a third cheaper than diesel-based electricity. For many countries without fossil fuel reserves, it makes simple economic sense to switch to clean power.”

Read more

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Comment: Climate change and security

As South Africa and Durban get ready to host the 17th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 17) from 28 November-9 December, 2011, a key question is posed to all nations: where do we stand and how does this affect us?

Climate change is one of the greatest common challenges facing the modern world. Left untackled, it will lead to more extreme and unpredictable weather conditions, including widespread drought and flooding. As two island nations, the Maldives and the UK are also particularly vulnerable to rising sea levels – in fact, as the Maldives is well aware, the effects are potentially catastrophic.

All of us – political leaders, diplomats, business people, scientists, activists and citizens – need to work together to provide solutions to this climate change challenge.

Climate change is not just an environmental threat. It is also an economic and security threat. People are concerned about the cost of action on climate change. But lack of action will have significant costs: experts predict that the costs of climate change will be between 5-20% of global GDP if no action is taken to prevent it, with developing countries expected to face the highest costs.

The reality is that action on climate change makes economic sense for all of us: there are, for example, a great variety of measures that households and businesses could take which would not only reduce their carbon emissions, but also save them money.

The human impact of climate change also extends to food, that most basic need of humankind. Changing temperatures will alter crop distributions and crop yields. There are dire consequences in store for rice production, the staple of the South Asian diet. A recent study by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) shows that every 1o rise in night-time temperature – a rise so small your body would barely register it – will produce a corresponding 10% decrease in grain yield.

The demand for food is predicted to grow by 70% by 2050. For the Maldives, as with many other countries, this will mean higher prices; for agrarian economies in the developing world, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Moreover, climate change is expected to lead to key developments within the South Asian region. Natural resources such as water are likely to become scarce, leading to tensions and conflict among those countries that mutually depend on these resources. South Asia is already one of the most conflict-prone regions in the world and among those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

The combination is combustive. Increasingly erratic weather patterns continue to threaten people’s homes and livelihoods, exacerbating social inequities and tensions, posing a real risk to peace and stability and affecting economy development. This reality was clearly recognised in the Presidential Statement issued after the UN Security Council debate on climate change in July this year.

The UK recognises that developed countries have to accept historic responsibility for creating much of the problem of climate change, and therefore, a greater responsibility for addressing it. The UK Government has committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 50% by 2025, and we are also encouraging the EU as a whole to increase the EU reduction target to 30% by 2020.

But the EU covers only some 12 percent of global emissions. We are coming to the end of the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and the need now is to build an ambitious, global, legally-binding regime, involving all major emitters. Only a legally binding approach will give business and investors the confidence they need to move rapidly on low carbon measures.

We have made some progress, as the small albeit definitive results of Cancun in 2010 reveal. But this is not enough. As John Ashton, the FCO Special Representative for Climate Change who visited the Maldives in July this year, said in a recent article in The Guardian, “The International Energy Agency has set the scene, with the timely warning in its new World Energy Outlook that we are way off track to avoid dangerous climate change, and that the window for effective action is closing fast.”

We need to summon the will, not just to avert disaster, but also to seize the opportunities of low carbon growth in trade, investment and new industries. Developing new technologies for sustainable development can be a driver for future growth. The Maldives, with its strong commitment to carbon neutrality by 2020, is well-placed to foster links with the most cutting-edge technologies in this field. The UK’s own clean technology goods and services market is now worth £112 billion and employs nearly a million people.

As President Nasheed said during his opening address at the recent SAARC summit, “The future is ours to shape.” It is up to the countries who meet in Durban over the next two weeks to shape the future of the world – to protect it from being further imperiled by climate change. The theme for COP17 is “Working Together: Saving Tomorrow Today.”

Five simple words – yet, they represent a world of a difference. What we do next week will determine what happens in the Maldives in the next decade – and beyond

John Rankin is the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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Island President opens to packed audiences

The pre-release premiere of the Island President opened last night in Dharubaarge to packed audiences.

Tickets that had originally been sold for Rf 80 (US$5) were selling for Rf 150 (US$10) on the black market yesterday afternoon. Such was the demand that organisers squeezed an extra 50 chairs into the auditorium at the last minute for on-the-door sales.

The film details the lead up to President Mohamed Nasheed’s election and the introduction of multi-party democracy. This is by no means an objective film: former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom is treated harshly by the filmmakers and portrayed as thoroughly creepy, as in one scene where he stares unblinking at the camera while soldiers goose step past and a tinny patriotic song plays in the background.

Neither is it propaganda – rare archival footage of brutal military crackdowns and photos of the battered body of Evan Naseem lead up to one of the film’s strongest moments: time-lapse footage of the tin shed in which Nasheed was incarcerated in solitary confinement for 18 months.

“You walk in your mind,” he explains. “Even if you can only take 4-5 steps, you walk it over and over again.”

Nasheed’s seriousness on the subjects of democracy and climate change is given contrast as the filmmakers home in on endearing personal touches – the President’s assistant struggling to do up his tie, Nasheed’s request that the Muleaage staff fetch his mother’s spicy fish recipe, his bitter asides expressing frustration with diplomatic bureaucracy, his phone call home to tell his mother he had secured a deal in Copenhagen, and photos from the days he sported an afro.

The film portrays him as a very human and accessible leader, qualities which are sure to make the film a success among the liberal university student demographic when it is released to cinemas in the US in February.

Foreign audiences with more interest in global climate politics than in the Maldives will find much to take from the film. Nasheed serves as a fascinating behind-the-scenes ticket to the Copenhagen Summit and the diplomatic wrangling of 192 world leaders. In one scene he bullies the President of Grenada into rewriting a document on the climate change ambitions of small island states, in another he disappears behind a palm tree to speak to the Australian Prime Minister over the phone – the filmmakers follow.

Descriptions of The Island President as ‘the West Wing of climate change’ are apt – in one scene, a Chinese diplomat is filmed asking a protocol officer to identify the Maldivian President. “Your government should know this,” she snaps.

The impact of the film locally will be hard to predict. Whatever the politics of the viewer, there is a great deal for Maldivians to be proud about in The Island President. In one scene, Nasheed and Environment Minister Mohamed Aslam argue bitterly about whether to compromise on 1.5 degrees in order to at least secure an adaptation deal.

“People listen to you. We don’t want to look like we’ve been bought,” Aslam insists. Nasheed’s explosive reaction quickly dispels any doubt that his is a calculated attempt to milk foreign aid – he is clearly convinced the threat is existential, but is forced to come to terms with compromising his global ambitions for the sake of his country.

The first screening last night was predictably brimming with Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) supporters, but the second session was a mixed – and younger – crowd. With 40 percent of the population aged between 15-24 and many disenfranchised by the ‘he said, she said’ nature of Maldivian politics, the film could well have political ramifications in 2013 if it proves popular with this set.

Eleanor Johnstone:

“The Island President” sets a mood of gravity and hope. Using footage and interviews original and historic, television broadcasts, and moments intimate as well as highly public, the film offers a cinematic collage of President Nasheed’s pursuit of democracy and in putting, and keeping, the Maldives on the map.

A combined sense of crisis and action dominates the film, particularly on the environmental issue. But threads of hope are strung throughout, most notably in the Maldivian government’s negotiating style. Regularly confronted with the baby-step methods of many foreign powers, Nasheed’s strident style may unnerve his own delegation but it presents him as a man of action, keen to keep his word.

Everyone knows someone who disdains politics as a sport of chatter and show. Nasheed is one of them. At Copenhagen he regularly vents of the slow-moving discussions and hesitant delegations to his own group of ministers. The Island President might leave Maldivians in fear for their homeland. But with a leader who speaks his mind without reservation, the country has more than many world powers can boast.

Extra showings of The Island President will be held at Athena Cinema on Friday
and Saturday, following unprecedented demand.

Friday 25 November at Athena Cinema: 14:30; 17:30; 20:30; 23:30.

Saturday 26 November at Athena Cinema: 17:30; 20:00.

Tickets can be bought from Athena Cinema between 16:30 – 23:00. Planned screenings for Dharubaarge on Thursday will be moved to Athena Cinema to meet demand. Ticket hotline: 9797356.

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Q&A: Richard Berge, Producer of “The Island President”

Richard Berge is a San Francisco -based film producer, writer and director with numerous credits in documentary film. Credits include “The Rape of Europa” which was nominated for an Emmy award and Documentary Screen Play award by the Writers Guild of America, and won the Audience Choice Award at the RiverRun International Film Festival. He is currently teaching at Berkley Journalism School.

Berge co-produced “The Island President” with Bonni Cohen and director Jon Shenk.

Eleanor Johnstone: How did you obtain permission to film?

Richard Berge: We contacted the press office in early 2009, after reading about Nasheed in the New York Times and different publications that were following him, and asked if they would be interested in having a film shot here about the President’s first year in office. We were hoping that it would lead to a natural climax at Copenhagen. At first, the press office was intrigued but said they couldn’t make a decision until they met us. So we took a risk and flew out here with the sound guy and thought we would maybe just check the place out. But we met with the President and five minutes later he said, “It sounds pretty interesting, I guess I’ll just have to trust you guys.” And next thing we knew, we were filming him on his trip to England to speak to Parliament.

EJ: It sounds like you had an interest in the environmental issue from the beginning. Did the young democracy aspect fall into place as you went?

RB: We always look for these story arcs that will make for an interesting frame. The Copenhagen thing a couple years ago was pretty hyped – that’s part of the reason why it was seen not to be a success. So we wanted to see how it would play out. And it turned out that the President became instrumental in that.

The film was kind of a one-two punch, in a way. In retrospect, the whole democracy thing and 2008 election seems like a precursor to the Arab Spring of earlier this year. It turned out we were there at the right time to follow this. So this transition to democracy after a 30 year rule by the former leader was definitely something that intrigued us. And the human rights issue, and spreading democracy in this part of the world was something that was interesting.

But when upon his election President Nasheed announced he would try to find a new homeland, we thought, “Wow, what a bold statement. Not sure that’s the wisest thing to say.” I think the government backpedaled a little after that, but it was intriguing. Here was a guy who clearly was going to speak his mind, and who was going to make a place for this small country on a large stage. So we saw this democracy-human rights angle in combination with this climate change issue a way to humanise the climate issue. You know, it’s such an abstract, intangible thing. And here’s this country that offers a way for people to understand what it means.

EJ: You said the President was quick to accept your proposal. How did he react to your close following and filming?

RB: I think he thought it was going to be a ’60 Minutes’ type piece. As in, we would interview him and then get some shots of him around the city, doing his thing, and then we would go away. I think he didn’t understand what we wanted.

You know, he walks from his house to the President’s Office. So we would go over in the morning and hang out outside the door, and then when he would walk to the office we would try and talk to him and say, “Mr President, this is what we’re trying to do, we need to be in your meetings.” We sort of slowly explained to him that what we were trying to do was not a news story, but a Victorian novel with one character we were following who was trying to overcome obstacles that would lead to a climax of some kind.

The access issue was a constant thing. But at the same time, I don’t think there is any other country that would have let us do what we did. It’s only because it’s a small country with a confident leader who was committed to being transparent. But even then, we were struggling all the way through. And not just because of him. Going to the UN? They don’t like cameras in there. Going to the World Bank, going to Copenhagen, it was tough.

EJ: Did the President or his administration back you up?

RB: To a point. They would allows us in there, but they were there to do business and if we were disrupting that business they weren’t going to let us stay in. They didn’t want us to interfere with their primary goals. Often we had to make the case that our presence wouldn’t interfere. The President wasn’t going to make it for us, and we had to make it to his counterparts, and his cabinet. He may have made the case behind the scenes, I don’t know. But I didn’t hear him say it to anyone.

EJ: Was there any controversial footage that had to be edited out, that either your team or the government said couldn’t be shown to the public?

RB: You have to understand that we shot about 200 hours of footage to make a 100 minute film. The President did not see any of that footage before he watched the film at the Toronto Film Festival. So that tells you a lot about how transparent he is. We didn’t take anything out. There was nobody saying “you can’t have this-or-that in the film.” So it’s pretty remarkable.

I can’t think of anything off hand that was controversial that’s not in there.

EJ: Why were you interested in following Nasheed?

RB: From what we had read in newspaper accounts he seemed like this really inspiring, motivated true believer in democracy, willing to put his own life and family on the line. And he seemed to speak truthfully from his heart and mind. He seemed like a leader that we wish our president [Barack Obama] would be more like. You may not agree with him, but he tells you what he believes. And so just for that reason he seemed very charismatic and inspiring, but also a rigorous thinker. When we were with him privately he was very down to earth, very funny, joked in the elevator, teased us. He just seemed like a very appealing person.

EJ: If he hadn’t had that appeal, would the movie have been as successful as it currently is? Would it have been done at all?

RB: Making these sorts of movies takes a lot of effort. Especially fund raising – I can’t emphasise how much work it takes to raise the money for these kind of things. We got seed money from ITVS, an affiliate of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to get going. But then we had to go to charitable foundations to get money, and it was touch and go the whole time. If Nasheed hadn’t been charismatic, if we couldn’t see that there would be something interesting happening, we wouldn’t have invested the time and energy in the project. But he seemed like the guy who was going to put a face on climate change. And I think we made the right decision.

EJ: As you may know, there has been some political reactions to the film in the Maldives. The opposition party has been terming it a propagandist film for the President’s benefit at the cost of domestic issues. What kind of impact do you think the film could have domestically?

RB: It’s about marketing Nasheed – and it’s a movie he never saw? Imagine a PR firm or advertising firm that would put something out that the subject had never seen before it went to public. It doesn’t make sense, right?

From what I know, I can imagine the opposition is not going to like it. I don’t know how badly they’re not going to like it. But I hope they can see it as a portrait of the country. I mean, there’s a man who’s a main character, but every story has characters. It’s a lot about the Maldivian people and the beauty of the country. In most of the places we’ve shown it, such as the United States, a lot of the audience has never heard about the Maldives. They don’t know where it is.

The movie has put the Maldives on the map for those few audiences who have seen it so far. People have come up to us saying, “That’s a place where I want to go now. It looks like a beautiful place, with interesting people to meet.” So from a cultural level, and maybe from an economic and tourism level, I can see a benefit. Here’s a movie that’s going to show for the first time in theaters across the States – we just signed a deal on Friday – and this is going to released theatrically in Dhivehi with English subtitles. I mean, that’s a good thing for the Maldives.

EJ: Did you get much opposition to the film?

RB: People have been very supportive. The only pushback is that foundations that give money for this kind fo thing don’t hav ea lot of money to give, and they don’t like to give it to films. They like to give it to direct programs, active on the ground. So it’s a really hard sell. That’s why I chuckle when you say this is being seen as propaganda. We wouldn’t have spent as many months as we did trying to raise money for this if it was going to be propaganda. It’s just too hard to do, there are easier ways to make a living, you know? We did this because it is a passionate story to tell.

EJ: How many people do you expect will see the film, in the Maldives and world wide?

RB: Eventually, everbody in the Maldives can see it. We’re showing it briefly now because we want to give that opportunity, but soon I’m sure it’ll be on television here and available on DVD. And in the States, when it shows on television I’m sure it’ll be seen by millions of people in the States at least, but we’re also going to broadcast in European countries, Australia, Japan hopefully, India, so this could have a very potent impact on the climate discussion.

We’re hoping the timing will be good in the States especially. Obama just delayed the decision on the XL pipeline, and so that signals to a lot of people that the climate might become an issue in the election this coming year. And I also like the fact that we have this charismatic leader in a film that will be shown in the States. Maybe people, these Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party people will say, “Why can’t we have somebody like this guy?”

EJ: So you’re saying the film could promote not a person but a type of leader.

RB: A type of leader around the world! I mean obviously we can’t have Mohamed Nasheed as our president, but maybe he can inspire other people to have the openness, transparency and honesty in discussing problems.

EJ: You mentioned that the film could affect elections on the environmental platform. How effective will the film be for the environmental campaign in general?

RB: I don’t know how it will affect elections here, but we went into this hoping that we could have in impact on the discussion of climate change in the United States. We got money from the Ford Foundation, from the MacArthur Foundation, from Sundance Institute, and what we were saying is, Al Gore’s film was great. It put climate change on the map for people. But it still left the issue an abstract, intangible thing. We knew it was an impending catastrophe in the future, possibly. But people still couldn’t relate to it on a personal level. So we said “We need to set out a movie somehow that makes this, brings this home for people in a human way, in a way people can relate to in a story. And I think we found a person that can carry that story.”

EJ: You’ve worked on a number of films in different areas of the world. How do you maintain a relationship to the place and the issue post-production, and post-release? Where does the Maldives fall in your future?

RB: Well, I wish it was closer to home. This was a life changing experience. To be able to embed ourselves with a president and his government, to see how these leaders make decisions and how they try to have an impact, this tiny country, how they try to have some kind of influence in the world–it’s fascinating. Being able to travel with them to England, to Copenhagen, to India, and see how they relate to those leaders, I’ve never done that before. And I feel like that was a real privilege.

I brought my wife and daughter on this trip because I used to go home from the shoots full of passion, and I wanted them to see what I was so passionate about. So hopefully, we can figure out a way to keep in touch with our friends here.

EJ: Has the work here impacted any professional plans you have for the future?

RB: I don’t know, part of the plan for “The Island President” isn’t just to put it on television. We’re going to have an outreach program that will educate people on panels and at schools, and use this a way to get people thinking more and more about climate change. Not just as it affects the Maldives but as it affects their communities in the United States and other places, and how they can start acting locally.

“The Island President” premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, where it received the People’s Choice award. The film will premier locally this week at Dharubaaruge at 20:00 on Wednesday evening. Tickets have been sold out.

Another screening will be held at Athena Cinema at 20:30 on Thursday evening. As of Monday evening, only four tickets remained.

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Q&A: Swedish Radio journalist Margita Boström

Margita Boström is a visiting news reporter for Swedish Radio, Sweden’s national publicly funded radio broadcaster, producing stories about climate change in the Maldives.

JJ Robinson: Given its remoteness, why do you think international media is so interested in the Maldives?

Margita Boström: The Maldives drew [the media’s] attention to what is going on here when it held the underwater cabinet meeting, and through the President’s comments saying he was going to buy land in other countries.

But that was 2-3 years ago. The climate issue is now coming up again, in Europe. It very much went down after Copenhagen because everyone was fed up with it, and then there was the economic crisis, which is still going on. That’s the biggest news item at the moment: is the euro going to continue? Sweden is not in the euro, so we’re fairly happy about that right now.

Then there is the upcoming meeting in Durban. [Journalists] are looking at what kind of countries can you report on to describe what happening in an easy way.

People in Sweden know the Maldives – we are a travelling people, especially in winter time. It easy for people to connect to the Maldives because they have a picture in their heads of these beautiful islands.

I have been working in Bangladesh on similar stories, but for people back the perception is just of people starving on the streets.

JJ: How has the perception you had of the Maldives as a reporter prior to coming been matched by the reality when you arrived here?

MB: I also had perception of the Maldives as small islands with crystal white beaches and blue lagoons. But coming to Male’ was totally different. It is not like an Asian country – maybe a little like Singapore. When I first arrived on the ferry, it seemed like a mini-Manhattan in the middle of nowhere.

JJ: How hard was it to find information about the real Maldives, as opposed to the resort side, when you were researching the country?

MB: Very hard. The only thing you find when you put ‘Maldives’ into google are the resorts and companies selling trips here. You have to put in more words to get close to anything else. I put ‘Maldives’ and ‘environment’, and then after a while I found the Bluepeace [local environment NGO] website.

But their website is not up to date, and I sent a message but didn’t get an answer. There was no telehpnhone number on the whole web page, and I went through it very thoroughly..

It was really hard to find information on the Maldives. I was quite frustrated when I first came here. Usually I come to a place and just start working – it is easy to get into. But here the stretch at the start was longer here because I couldn’t find any information beforehand.

JJ: What kind of impact do you think this lack of information has on the international coverage the Maldives?

MB: I think it is hard for people to understand the scale of the problem. People don’t understand climate change is very difficult for Maldivians, and that they depend on the rest of the world being aware of what’s going on. [The lack of information] means the Maldives loses opportunities to get the world focused on the problem.

When I in Bangladesh it was very easy to find NGOs and people in government – it was very easy to get in contact with people.

JJ: How did this lack of information affect your work as a journalist?

MB: It has been getting better [during the trip], but the stretch at the start was longer. I am glad I didn’t just stay 5-6 days. I stayed a bit longer. It is hard to get in contact with people, but when you do it is very easy to get interviews – Bluepeace has been very helpful now, but I couldn’t contact them before I got here.

Working out who are you going to talk to, and how contact them, that is hard. It seems like only a few people know how. Normally you can set up interviews beforehand, so it has been very frustrating.

JJ: How has seeing the Maldives first-hand affected the stories you thought you were going to produce?

MB: I thought I was going to do stories about sea level rise and the President buying land in Sri Lanka, but I see now it is a more complex story. I didn’t really understand why the President was saying he wanted to make Maldives carbon neutral.

Now I understand that was a way of showing up the rest of the world. It will be hard for other countries to say “carbon neutral doesn’t work”, when the Maldives can come to climate meetings in 15-20 years and say “We did it.” It will be hard for the US or China. [The Maldives’ emphasis on climate change] is political way of [fighting climate change].

JJ: What can the Maldives do to encourage more foreign journalists to come and look at the stories behind the resorts and the obvious environmental pieces?

MB: One idea is to make it easier to find information on the internet. Maybe there should be a government page with information on which person deals with different things, telephone numbers and emails, so they can be contacted. It is very hard [for foreign media] because it is quite an expensive trip to come here, and you really need to know beforehand that you can make stories.

I also found it very hard to understand how the country can be so hard to travel around when it is 99 percent water. How can you travel around? You can’t find that information either. I found two airports, in the north and the south, but nothing on how to fly there, or boats you can go on, the cost of it, or a contact to find out. These are practical things – there should be a portal for information.

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“The Island President” to be shown in Maldives

Documentary film “The Island President” will make its debut in the Maldives during the week of November 21. Specifics have not yet been released.

“The Island President” was screened at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, where it received the Cadillac People’s Choice Award for Best Documentary by audience vote. The film was one of 25 submissions in the documentary category.

The documentary was also screened at the exclusive Telluride Film Festival in Colorado earlier this month, where Hollywood Reporter named “The Island President” one of the festival’s “Top 12 films to know”.

The grant-funded film project began in 2009, when Oscar- and Emmy- winning American documentary company Actual Films contacted the Maldives’ newly-elected government. In an interview on Mavericks, Director Jon Shenk said the film was an evolutionary process. “It’s difficult to explain a film that involves a lot of  access and high ratio shooting,” he said, describing his initial proposal to the President. In other interviews, Shenk noted that Nasheed’s candid politics and acceptance of the cameras were key to the film’s success.

“The manner in which he’s done this is quite amazing,” Nasheed said in the same interview. “I myself am realising the things I have done and said, I hope it’s not going to get me in a bad boat! But I think it’s nicely done and I’m sure there’s nothing that anyone should get unnecessarily worked up about.”

Starting with Nasheed’s initial vow to make the Maldives carbon-neutral, the film documents the president’s efforts to make climate change an important issue for politicians around the globe.

“The ability to sustain human life here is very fragile,” Nasheed says in the documentary. “The most important fight is the fight for our survival…. There is impending disaster.”

The film culminates in Copenhagen, where world leaders met in December 2009 for the United National Climate Change Conference. Although the summit was later reviewed as a failure, it did mark the first time that leading world powers agreed that the issue needed to be addressed.

“The Island President” was co-produced by AfterImage Public Media and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), in association with Actual Films and Impact Partners, with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Ford Foundation, John D. and The Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund.

The Maldives is the film’s fifth stop on an international tour that has included TIFF, Telluride, Doc NYC and IDFA Amsterdam film festivals. After the Maldives screening it will be shown at the International Film Festival of India in Goa.

State Minister for Tourism Mohamed Thoyyib previously told Minivan News that in spite of its title the documentary was not about President Mohamed Nasheed. Rather, it is about the issues facing the Maldivian people. The film raised awareness of global warming, portrayed and promoted “the unique ” Maldivian culture and language, and illustrated government transparency, he said.

“No scene was created or scripted, some reviewers even noted that the film’s most unique aspect was that it shot real events on a level that had never before been achieved in the Maldives, or within other governments,” Thoyyib said.

Thoyyib also noted that the Maldivian government had benefited a great deal from the film, but had not spent money on its production.

“There is a lot to be achieved directly and indirectly when something positive happens,” he said, adding that tourism revenue was likely to increase. “But this doesn’t solve the issue. The President will keep on raising his voice on global warming.”

President’s Office Press Secretary Mohamed Zuhair today said he didn’t believe the government was officially involved in the upcoming screening, but was optimistic about the event.

“I believe it will be well-received in the Maldives,” he said. “The film delivers a serious but hopeful message, addressing both the issue of climate change while also showing democratic improvements in the government.”

Zuhair elaborated on the country’s progress by comparing use of foreign aid in previous administrations. He hoped the Maldives would be used as an example for other small countries.

“Any small or new country receiving aid from a foreign party should process it democratically. The money received after the tsunami was not disposed of well by the former government, whose methods are highlighted by the ongoing debate in our judicial system. Comparatively, the government procedures that the movie covers show what a young democracy can do to improve transparency. The Maldives now has different democratic assets, and can handle change.”

When asked if the screening bore relevance to the SAARC summit now taking place in Addu City, Zuhair said climate change would be a major talking point. He added that the summit is another indicator of the Maldives’ democratic growth. “SAARC shows our effort to be not just an active, but a proactive member of an international organisation,” he said.

Filmmakers Shenk and Richard Berg will accompany the film to Male’.

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Comment: SAARC summit should make a bridge to face climate change

“I had five houses but only one is left, all are destroyed by cyclone Ayla. We were not poor, we had everything but now we are street beggar. It happened within a few seconds. Water flows up to the eight feet over the embankment. Now it looks like sea. In every tide saline water flows over the land so we have no way to grow here anything. How shall we get food, shelter and education now? Some people are going to Dhaka and other city but we cannot dare to do this, ultimately we have no choice. We have to leave this place.”

That is a statement of one of Ayla’s victims (at Khulan, a southern part of Bangladesh), made to the UK’s Guardian newspaper.

They are waiting to leave Khulan. 200,000 people have already migrated from the area.

People in Bangladesh are already living with the effects of climate change. Bangladesh is trapped between the Himalayas in the north and the encroaching Bay of Bengal to the south, and is the most vulnerable country in the world to natural disasters due to the frequency of extreme climate changes, and its high population density.

At the 16th summit of  the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Nobel Laureate and chairperson of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachaur, said that the Summit would provide an opportunity for SAARC countries to discuss common problems related to climate change that will affect all the countries of SAARC.

However, the slogan of the 17th SAARC summit of the Maldives is`Building Bridge’. The effects of the climate change should be the main focus and SAARC countries should build bridges to face these effects.

All the eight SAARC countries  are facing the effects of climate change: Bangladesh is facing internal migration of its people. Climate change has affected agriculture, so every day large number of people are migrating from village to capital and they are living an unhygienic life, with no sanitation facilities or drinking water. A World Bank study says that in the near future 700 million people in India will migrate to urban areas due to the impact of climate change on agriculture.

The 17th SAARC Summit is being held in the Maldives. Eighty percent of its 1,200 islands are no more than one metre above sea level, and scientists fear the sea may rise up to 0.9cm a year. If the world does not fight against climate change, within 100 years the Maldives could become uninhabitable.

The country’s 360,000 citizens would be forced to evacuate. In Kandholhudhoo in the Maldives, tidal surges already flood homes every fortnight.

Sri Lanka is also vulnerable country to the effects of climate change. Once it used to be said that that climate change in Sri Lanka was more dangerous than civil war – major part of Jaffna and other northern areas of Sri Lanka will be submerged when the sea level rises.

Climate change in Sri Lanka will have dire consequence for water, agriculture, health and coastal regions. Already there are early signs of impact, which will reach serious proportions by 2025.

Melting glaciers could affect 500 million people in South Asia, alongside rising sea level, changing rainfall patterns and scarcity of drinking water. Like Bangladesh, rural Nepalese are already living in poverty due to this effect, and winter wheat crops have been failed due to the warmer climate. Indian wheat is also facing that problem.

Nepal, Bhutan and the Himalayan mountainous region are a few of the most vulnerable areas in the world to climate change. Pakistan has suffered from dangerous floods for a long time.

Thus all the South Asian countries are facing the effects of climate change. Bangladesh is the among most vulnerable of these while the 17th SAARC host country, the Maldives, is no less vulnerable than Bangladesh. Sri Lanka is also in the same condition.

So we hope that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, and the President of the Maldives, will take the lead to make a bridge to face the climate change. Other affected countries: Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan and Afghanistan should also help to make this bridge. The richest country in the world, the USA, is an observer of SAARC now. Their representative is joining the summit. They have a duty to fight together with the worst climate-affected countries like Bangladesh, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and others.

Swadesh Roy is Executive Editor of the The Daily Janakantha, Bangladesh.

All comment pieces are the sole view of the author and do not reflect the editorial policy of Minivan News. If you would like to write an opinion piece, please send proposals to [email protected]

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