Maldives Cabinet Holds Underwater Meeting in Lagoon Off Island of Girifushi

Talk about being creative.  Cabinet ministers in the Maldives held an underwater meeting Saturday to draw attention to the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth. President Mohammed Nasheed and members of his cabinet, dressed in scuba gear, met in a lagoon off the island of Girifushi. They sat at a table anchored to the sand on the floor of the Indian Ocean and signed a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.

Officials from around the world will meet in the Copenhagen, the Danish capital, under UN auspices to hammer out a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, with the aim of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions that are blamed for global warming.

The ministers said that if something isn't done to stem the rate of rising sea levels, the entire archipelago could end up under the water by the end of the century, since the island group is only a couple meters above sea level. Scientists at a meeting in Copenhagen last March predicted that glaciers and ice sheets melting as a result of global warming could boost the level of the world's oceans by as much as a meter by 2100.

Maldives Archipelago to Introduce Green Tax on Tourists

The Maldives archipelago will introduce a new environmental tax on all tourists who use its resorts and provide its economic lifeline. Why? The archipelago is threatened by rising sea levels due to climate change. The Maldives, which is the stomping ground of the rich and famous, has made quite a name for itself as an advocate for mitigating climate change because the rising sea levels are forecast to submerge most of its islands by 2100.

The Maldives' $850 million economy reportedly gets more than a quarter of its gross domestic product from tourists, but has not yet taxed them to help it fight climate change. President Mohammed Nasheed said an environment tax was soon to be levied on all tourists. "We have introduced a green tax. It's in the pipeline. It's a matter of parliament approving it and I hope parliament will approve it -- $3 per each tourist a day," Nasheed told reporters in Male, the capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

According to Reuters, based on an annual average of 700,000 tourists who spend an average of three days on the islands, that translates to about $6.3 million annually.