Ambassador of the Maldives in the EU: “W • Table.Briefings

An archipelago of 1,192 islands in the Indian Ocean, the Maldives is one of the most low-lying nations in the world and thus particularly vulnerable to global warming. Ambassador of the Republic of Maldives in the European Union Omar Abdul Razzak spoke to Claire Stam about better access to climate finance, health risk linked to global warming and the importance of data collection to have a better access to climate finance.

According to the World Bank, future sea levels are projected to increase in the range of 10 to 100 centimeters by the year 2100. With these estimates, the Maldives could be completely submerged. This has led to action being taken. What kind of projects the Maldives is putting in place?

By 2050, 80 percent of the Maldives is not going to be habitable. That is why we decided to start a program that aims at creating new islands that are sea level rise safe and Tsunami safe. They have for instance strong coastal protection, sanitation systems and are between five and six meters above sea level. In fact, we use the expertise of Dutch companies to create these new islands and we can now create new ones in any shape and any height we want.

Ambassador of the Maldives in the EU: “We need better climate finance data monitoring”

Sign up now and continue reading immediately