Maldives says it will go carbon-neutral.
Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Republic of Maldives, in The Guardian today:
'In a grotesque Faustian pact, we have done a deal with the carbon devil: for untold fossil fuel consumption in our lifetime, we are trading our children's place in an earthly paradise. Today, the Maldives will opt out of that pact.
'At the premiere of the new film The Age of Stupid, the Maldives will announce it is to become the world's first carbon-neutral country. Spearheaded by a switch from oil to 100% renewable energy production within a decade, the Maldives will no longer be a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.'
The same day's Guardian editorial:
'[P]olicy-making for the long term has fallen out of fashion. In fact, many of us fell out of the habit of long-term thinking during the heady consumer boom. That must now change.
'The financial crisis has shattered the free-market orthodoxy that drove policy for a generation. We can now develop a new political philosophy, one that has the principles of environmental sustainability at its core - that presents the threat of climate change not as inevitable apocalypse, but as an opportunity.'
'In a grotesque Faustian pact, we have done a deal with the carbon devil: for untold fossil fuel consumption in our lifetime, we are trading our children's place in an earthly paradise. Today, the Maldives will opt out of that pact.
'At the premiere of the new film The Age of Stupid, the Maldives will announce it is to become the world's first carbon-neutral country. Spearheaded by a switch from oil to 100% renewable energy production within a decade, the Maldives will no longer be a net contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.'
The same day's Guardian editorial:
'[P]olicy-making for the long term has fallen out of fashion. In fact, many of us fell out of the habit of long-term thinking during the heady consumer boom. That must now change.
'The financial crisis has shattered the free-market orthodoxy that drove policy for a generation. We can now develop a new political philosophy, one that has the principles of environmental sustainability at its core - that presents the threat of climate change not as inevitable apocalypse, but as an opportunity.'