Underwater cabinet

Maldives held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Friday to raise awareness about the threat to the archipelago on account of global warming and stronger climate change resolutions in the upcoming Copenhagen summit.

Maldives held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Friday to raise awareness about the threat to the archipelago on account of global warming and stronger climate change resolutions in the upcoming Copenhagen summit.

The cabinet chaired by President Mohamed Nasheed held the meeting about five meters underwater aimed at pushing for stronger climate change resolutions in the upcoming Copenhagen summit.

President Nasheed and his ministers dressed in scuba suits used hand signals and slates to communicate.

The Maldivian cabinet also signed a document calling for global cuts in carbon emissions.

President Nasheed will present this document before the landmark UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

The Copenhagen summit is aimed at creating a consensus among the world leaders over the new agreement to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Earlier, while addressing the UN climate change summit in September, President Nasheed said: "The countries that embrace the Green New Deal will be the winners of the 21st century."

Today's initiative of the Maldivian Cabinet is a part of a worldwide campaign to draw global attention to the pressing issue of climate change led by 350.org.

Of late, Maldives has been drawing the attention of the world on the need to take steps to halt rising sea levels.

For the first time in the country's history, however, the Maldives is facing a new threat of apocalyptic, existential proportions. Now this island nation in Indian Ocean is looming silently, invisibly and menacingly over the azure horizon due to the climate change and rising sea levels.

The average height of Maldivian islands is just 1.5 metres above sea level.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned "Sea levels could rise over half a metre by the end of the 21st century, unless urgent steps are taken to halt greenhouse gas emissions.

Low-lying island states such as the Maldives are living on borrowed time."