Recently a G-20 economic summit was hosted by the United States of America in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to discuss, among other things, the global economy, a growing global credit crisis, and ideas to stimulate the global economy to turn itself around. The G-20 is a group of 19 industrialized nations plus the European Union; considered to be the world’s wealthiest and most influential governments. Typically, I don’t follow the G-20 or its progression from what used to be the G-6, the G-7, the G7 plus 1, and so on. But there was one event at the September, 2009 meeting that I found fascinating and it had nothing to do with finance…on the face of it. However, it had to do with the real possibility of a sovereign nation simply disappearing off the face of the Earth.
The president of the Maldives, an archipelago of 1,190 islands in the Indian Ocean, spoke at the event of an even greater threat to his island nation than the global economic crisis. President Mohamed Naseed is the leader of a country with an average land elevation above sea level of just 4 feet, 11 inches. Its highest land elevation reaches the astounding height of 7 feet, 7 inches. President Naseed expressed concern that his island nation might, before the end of the century, find itself underwater if the growing awareness of global warming simply remains a concern and no real action is taken by industrialized nations to curb carbon emissions which lock in greenhouse gasses and cause the Earth’s temperature to rise. Higher temperatures=quicker melting of polar ice caps=rising sea levels.
In an article from the New York Times entitled “Wanted: A New Home for My Country,” President Naseed expressed concern over global warming leading to rising sea levels to a point where even a 20-30 centimeter surge from a Tsunami could envelope the islands. And with rising sea levels comes a growing concern that sensitive coral beds dying in water where the temperature variance changes with water depth becomes a reality. The Maldives receives most of its gross domestic product from tourism and with dead coral reefs…well, the Maldives has yet another major and growing problem on its hands.
The New York Times article does comment on those in the science community who disagree with President Naseed and those who support his ideas. But, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely considered by all sides of the issue to be fairly straightforward and true, estimates that by the year 2100 sea levels will rise between 7-20 inches around the globe if nothing is done to lower carbon emissions. Steve Narem from the University of Colorado notes that global sea levels have risen from between 2.2 and 3.3 millimeters per year since measurements were first taken in 1993 and there is nothing to stop or diminish this trend on the horizon. For those of us metrically challenged, that’s conservatively 1.5 inches…in 17 years!
The real tragedy is that whether you fall on the side of global warming as a myth or a fact, the Maldives as a sovereign nation faces a rather wet peril. As much as he might not want to put the gears in motion, President Naseed might simply have to follow through with his idea to buy a sizable chunk of land from another country and move the entire population of Maldives to Australia or Sri Lanka. Of course, he has to figure out a way to pay not only for the land, but how to move 300,000 people who probably don’t want to move.
What a shame. I never thought of global warming as something that might cause an entire country to relocate. Sort of puts it in a different perspective, doesn’t it? And for those who say the Maldives simply should not have put itself in this situation by being located where it is…the archipelago is home to 300,000 people whose rich heritage in this area of the world can be historically and continuously traced back to at least 300 B.C.E. What if you lived there and that was your world?
I bet if one of the G-20 countries was at sea level and facing this problem that something more would and could be done.
Now, about that global warming…let us get real, G-20.
