There is no question of seeing the last corals die. Despite the risk of his country being engulfed, the former President of the Maldives Mohamed Nasheed, recently a survivor of an assassination attempt, refuses to “lose hope”: the world will limit the warming.
In 2009, the one who speaks today on behalf of the Climate Vulnerable Forum representing the countries most vulnerable to climate change, organized a council of ministers under water to strike the spirits and alert the world to the risks of submersion of island states facing the rising sea level.
“Ten years later, where are we? “, He launches during an interview with AFP in Glasgow during the COP26 climate conference. “I think we have made a lot, a lot of progress.”
Certainly, some countries still need to strengthen their climate ambitions, but the former president is now convinced that the world will be able to limit the rise in temperatures to +1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, the most ambitious goal of the Paris agreement.
“I think people have understood the gravity of the situation,” he said, referring to the climatic disasters which no longer only affect developing countries but also Europe or the United States, also ravaged by climate change. fires and floods. “It’s an electoral question now, that’s why the leaders adopted this speech.”
See also: Humanity heading for global warming of 2.7 ° C
“The tree that does not burn”
“We must be able to pull ourselves together, save the planet and keep +1.5 ° C,” he insists. “We can’t be pessimistic, we can’t give up hope. If we lose hope, where do we go? What do we do ? “.
But to hope does not mean to give up the fight, far from it. He reminds the rich countries of their broken promise to increase their climate aid to the poorest countries to 100 billion dollars per year from 2020. He also calls for ever more ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions , in order to preserve the future.
“In the Maldives, we were the first generation to see the coral reef, because we were the first generation to have goggles, masks, diving equipment,” he notes. “Unfortunately, we are also the first generation to see the reefs die.”
And if scientists fear that the corals will no longer have the capacity to adapt, even if the warming is limited to +1.5 ° C, Mohamed Nasheed refuses such a fate.
“We want to find a resistant coral,” he enthuses. “We want to find a grain of sand that helps retain water and prevent landslides […]. Maybe we want to find a tree that won’t burn ”.
Survive all
While waiting for these discoveries, he pleads for the use of nature as “infrastructure” to protect the territories, such as the restoration of mangroves.
But all of this takes money. Money claimed from the rich countries responsible for this climate change and its growing impacts.
“You didn’t invent the combustion engine to murder me. But in fact, this is what is happening. Are you going to make up for that? “, He launches, referring to the demands of developing countries for financing of” loss and damage “.
But at the same time, he refuses to use this polluting past of the North as an excuse to allow emerging countries to do the same.
“It would be like saying that the West has pushed us very close to the precipice, and that the new big emitting countries have the right to make us fall in.”
Ultimately, “we want to survive, and we want you to survive too,” insists the former president.
“It’s not just about us anymore. When we sink, the whole ship will sink ”.