{"id":20426,"date":"2012-03-30T17:04:21","date_gmt":"2012-03-31T01:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=20426"},"modified":"2018-02-01T23:05:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T23:05:02","slug":"politics-climate-change-and-human-rights-in-the-maldives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/03\/30\/politics-climate-change-and-human-rights-in-the-maldives\/","title":{"rendered":"Politics, Climate Change and Human Rights in the Maldives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Island President<\/em> tells the story of the former president’s fight for climate action<\/strong><\/p>\n

The new documentary, The Island President<\/em>, depicts former-president Mohamed Nasheed’s efforts to draw the world’s attention to the plight of his country. The islands that make up the Maldives lie barely above sea level. With a few feet of sea level rise, they will be inundated.<\/p>\n

John Shenk, the San Francisco-based director of the film, was a guest on KQED’s Forum<\/em> last week<\/a>. He talked about how Nasheed, the country’s first democratically-elected president (he resigned in February<\/a>), and a former human rights campaigner, became a climate change activist.<\/p>\n

“He took office and immediately plunged into the climate debate,” Shenk said. “He’s framing the climate debate as a human rights issue. He very much sees the climate fight, the struggle against climate change, as an extension of his fight for democracy.”<\/p>\n

In a quote from the film, Nasheed explains: “When we came to power we thought we won the fight. After twenty years, we thought, ‘Look, OK, we’ll have a happy life.’ But we had our first few cabinet meetings, and most of the pending issues were climate change issues. Weather patterns are changing, and that’s having a very big impact on fisheries. We have lost a lot of the shoreline. Our islands are going to be flooded.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nasheed attended the UN climate talks in Copenhagen <\/a>in 2009, where island nations banded together, hoping to pressure the larger countries into a deal to take action on reducing greenhouse gases and addressing climate change. That didn’t happen, but Shenk shows how Nasheed emerged as leader in the debate.<\/p>\n