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The Maldives, threatened by drowning due to climate change, set to go carbon-neutral

Worried their country will end up under water as the globe warms and sea ices melt, the government of the Maldives this week announced that the Indian Ocean nation will go carbon neutral by 2020. No part of the chain of 1,200 low-lying islets rises more than six feet (1.8 meters) or so above sea level, leaving the 400,000 inhabitants there at grave risk of rising sea levels and storm surges, environmental journalist Andy Revkin writes today in a New York Times blog.  

The Maldives government last year considered setting aside funds from its main biz – tourism – to purchase land from another country, such as India or Sri Lanka, to eventually relocate its populace. Recent reports give urgency to the plan, indicating that  sea levels are expected to rise some 3.3 feet (1 meter) by 2100, even faster than predicted in the already dire-sounding Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in 2007.


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