Although the Maldives was the first country to sign the Kyoto Protocol, that did not help this tiny string of islands reduce the threat of climate change. And it hasn't discouraged them. Instead, they have just set an example.
According to NPR, some countries that are struggling with climate change could learn a lot from this constellation of tiny islands in the Indian Ocean. Also, listen to Jon Hamilton's radio report.
Maldives' president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who has been in power for the last three decades, is experimenting with not only something new and ambitious, but something very unimaginable for a country like the Maldives. He is building artificial flood-resistant islands!
From the NPR story:
"You catch a ferry from a part of Male where motorcycles clog the narrow streets and fishermen gut their morning catch on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, you arrive in a brand new world, the island of Hulhumale. It's an artificial island built by engineers, not volcanoes.
When the ferry arrives, you step up onto this island. The streets are straight and wide. There's a new hospital, new schools, new government buildings, new apartments — all several feet higher than the rest of the Maldives.
The flood-resistant island was created by a huge dredge that sucked up sand from the ocean floor and disgorged it into a shallow lagoon. Eventually, Hulhumale rose from the waters.
That was more than five years ago. Now, several thousand people live here. Gayoom's goal is to attract at least 50,000."
Check out what Hulhumale Development Corporation is doing.
Learn more about the process of building the artificial island.
Gayoom's first effort was a massive seawall, almost a mile long,
made of concrete tetrapods, which surrounded the entire capital of Male
-- a $60 million project undertaken with the help of the Japanese
government following the floods of 1987.
But the wall also makes Male the least attractive of the Maldives' 200 inhabited islands.
Not quite with the artificial island. Gayoom's vision might have been a little stretched for the long run, but as long as the people of the Maldives are safe, it does not quite matter.
Gayoom has also been very vocal about asking the developed countries, which he thinks are responsible for climate change, to pay for the costs of building such taller islands.
More from the NPR story: Click here for an interactive map to see what climate change would do to the world's coastlines.
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