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Maldives government dives for climate change
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Associated Press
COP-15 Copenhagen - News
Michael von Bülow
Seated at a table on the sea floor the low-lying island state's president, vice president, cabinet secretary and 11 ministers signed a document calling on all countries to cut their carbon dioxide emissions.
Members of the Maldives' Cabinet donned scuba gear and used hand signals Saturday at an underwater meeting staged to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.
President Mohammed Nasheed and 13 other government officials submerged and took their seats at a table on the sea floor 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi, an island usually used for military training.
With a backdrop of coral, the meeting was a bid to draw attention to fears that rising sea levels caused by the melting of polar ice caps could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.
