Maldives Takes On The Climate Challenge

On March 17th, at the launch of the British film ‘The Age of Stupid’, President of the Maldives, Mohammed Nasheed, proved a point to the world.

He unveiled a plan to make his country go carbon neutral within ten years. Ambitious as it is, this will make Maldives the first country in the world to go carbon neutral.

“If we can achieve this – a small, relatively poor country – there can be no excuse from the rich industrial nations who claim that going green is too complex, too expensive, or too much of a bother”.

“Survival is non-negotiable”

With climate change and rising sea levels, the long-term habitability and existence of the Maldives is threatened. The 200-odd inhabited islands of the Maldives are all barely 1.5 metres above sea level. Climate change is no far-fetched threat to the people of this country, but a question of survival. For these people, life atop their coral atolls is expected to be obliterated by 2100, by which time sea levels will rise more than 1.5 metres. But rather than taking the easy way out and booking a safe landing in another nation (an option that was tried and scrapped for financial reasons), Maldives is choosing the harder option of tackling climate change head on.

Here is the way

Close to one month ago, the Maldives government approached authors Matk Lynas (‘Six Degrees’) and Chris Goodall (‘Ten Technologies to Save the Planet’), for a plan to make the country go carbon neutral, and eliminate fossil fuel use by 2020. The plan is ambitious, and estimated to cost $1.1 billion over ten years, more than the country can currently afford. The economy based almost entirely on tourism and fishing, is worth about $800 million a year. But the scheme should pay for itself fairly quickly, because of the savings on oil imports, says Lynas.

Notwithstanding the cost, the Maldives aims to go through with the plan, and switch completely to renewable energy sources, for electricity, transport and cooking requirements.

Close to 155 wind turbines and a solar panel ‘field’ will provide the bulk of the electricity. To account for any variability or shortfall, they propose biomass combustion using coconut husks for the capital, and batteries for the other islands. Currently, the major source of energy for most islands is diesel generators. As for transport, the plan suggests switching from diesel and petrol to electricity generated from renewables. Cooking is mainly done through wood and kerosene, which will likely be replaced by alternatives such as solar cookers, electric stoves and efficient closed stoves. Composting organic waste will eliminate methane generation, and the resulting material will be used to improve soil fertility and crop-yields.

50,000 tourists carbon neutrality?

The one major shortfall of the plan is the issue of countering the effects of tourism. The country’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism, with 50,000 tourists visiting the Maldives each year. After electricity, the largest source of carbon emissions is aviation. The authors of the plan propose to counter this by carbon offsetting,using the EU – Emission Trading Scheme.

On a mission to prove a point

The Maldives is not the first country to announce its plan to go carbon neutral – Norway is aiming for the same by 2030. But this scheme is more ambitious, not only in its ten year target, but also in its approach. It aims to ‘diffuse the carbon bomb’ and decarbonise the economy completely – unlike Norway, which will still rely on emission offsets.

No one is suggesting that the path to carbon neutrality will be easy. But “The point of doing it”, says Lynas, “is that this is something the Maldives can lead the world in”.