Sahid address climate change negotiators

13 December 2007
Report: Jaxu

Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid on the 10 of this month addressed the world’s climate change negotiators at a World Bank event in Bali. In his address he urged them to consider the “immediate and compelling” human face of global warming as they strive to reach a new international agreement on tackling the problem.

Minister Shahid began his address by reminding the delegates the challenge of the climate change is fundamentally a human one.

“Climate change is caused by human activity and its consequences are most keenly felt by individual people, especially those living in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities” said Minister Shahid. Maldives is determined that late 2007 will come to be seen as a turning point in the global debate on climate change said Foreign Minister Shahid.

In this regard, Minister informed the World Bank event participants that during a recent meeting of Small Island States in Male’, launched a major international initiative to draw the world’s attention to the human face of climate change.

Minister Shahid went on to explain that in his view human dimension of climate change has three component parts: the developmental dimension, the humanitarian dimension and human rights dimension. The Minister explained that one aim of the Male’ Declaration on the Human Dimension of Global Climate Change and the initiative that it launched is to adopt a rights based approach to global warming.