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Politics & Current Affairs

Suicide Pact?

The president of the Maldives is urging “a collective spirit of co-operation” at Copenhagen lest the summit becomes nothing more than a “suicide pact”.
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“Mohammed Nasheed knows what global warming means, because he sees it every day. He survived years of imprisonment and torture to lead his country – the Maldives – to democracy. But now, as its President, he is being forced to watch as his homeland is wiped from the map. With each year that passes, the rising sea claims more land, and at the current rate it will claim everything. He knows why. We know why. It is because we have released massive amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and we aren’t stopping. Unless we turn around – fast – the Maldives will be gone. Today, he has a final plea. President Nasheed says: ‘Copenhagen can be one of two things. It can be an historic event where the world unites against carbon pollution in a collective spirit of co-operation and collaboration, or Copenhagen can be a suicide pact. The choice is that stark.’”

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