Maldives President Nasheed Speaks Out at UN Climate Change Summit

Maldives President made a moving speech at the UN Climate Change Summmit about his country’s bleak future.  The following text is the transcript of the speech.

Yesterday at the AOSIS summit we agreed to recognize the need to supplement the UNFCCC process by calling on the major emitters to agree to produce enough clean energy to attain the targets of limiting temperate rise to 1.5 degree Celsius and 350ppm of carbon concentration. It is now in all of our national interests to dump first and dump far, that is why the Maldives, without waiting for the outcome of the Copenhagen summit, recently announced its intention of becoming carbon neutral by 2020.

And why are we actively formulating a national strategy to put the political commitment into practice? Ladies and gentlemen, as I have made clear, the Maldives is determined to break old habits. From now on we will no longer be content to shout about the perils of planet change. Instead, we believe our acute vulnerable provides us with the clarity of vision to understand how the problem may be solved. It’s very crystal clear to us.

The objectivity to say that it is in all of our interest to aggressively pursue that solution, and the courage and determination to lead by example by walking the path ourselves. In return we ask some bold world leaders to discard those habits that have led to 20 years of complacency and broken promises on planet change, and instead to seize the historic opportunity that sits at the end of the road to Copenhagen.

Please ladies and gentlemen, we did not do any of these things, but if things go business as usual, we will not live, we will die. Our country will not exist. We cannot come out of Copenhagen as failures. We cannot make Copenhagen a pact for suicide. We have to succeed and we have to make a deal in Copenhagen.

Thank you very much.

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