Earlier this week Peers for the Planet hosted an event with Mohammed Nasheed, former President and currently Speaker of the People’s Majlis (Parliament) of the Maldives.
As one of the leading global voices on the climate impacts faced by vulnerable states, Mr Nasheed provided an honest and sobering account of the impacts countries like the Maldives are facing today and the injustice felt about why they are having to pay for the consequences of somebody else’s carbon emissions.
Peers and MPs heard how in the Maldives the costs of adaption has risen to 30% of government spending annually and a further 25% of income is spent on debt repayments – even though large parts of the public infrastructure this was used to fund has now been washed away.
Ahead of COP27 starting next week, Mr Nasheed called for parliamentarians to use their influence to help push forward his proposals for financing loss and damage so that any global financial solutions agreed empower climate vulnerable nations to secure the climate resilience they need.
“I am very hopeful that Britain would lead, and I've always thought that Britain would understand small islands and the difficulties that we have. I'm not actually asking for huge amounts of funds in loss and damage, we are asking for reasonable economic systems, governing systems, trading systems that would benefit all of us and hopefully we will be able to survive the years to come”.
President Mohammed Nasheed, 02 November 2022
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