Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Tuvalu turns to solar energy – against rising seas
With a highest point 4.5 metres above sea level, the Pacific island state of Tuvalu plans to shift to generate all electricity from renewable energies by 2020, hoping to push other countries to follow suit to fight global warming.
These solar panels (left) on the main soccer stadium in Funafuti, the capital, are the first step in the plan to end dependence on fossil fuels and slow climate change blamed for pushing up world sea levels. Tuvalu’s goal is to generate all electricity from wind, solar and other green sources.
By contrast, European Union nations have among the most ambitious goals among developed countries, aiming to get 20 percent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.
Tuvalu’s plan – story here - will cost more than $20 million and will require a lot depend heavily on aid from abroad. That’s a big cost for each of the atolls’ 12,000 citizens - $1,666 – but can have other benefits such as avoiding tanker spills from imported oil.
And the plan sounds to me exactly the sort of ”measureable, reportable and verifiable” actions to offset climate change that are being demanded of developing nations in U.N. negotiations on a new climate treaty due to be agreed in December.
The Maldives in the Indian Ocean have set an even more ambitious goal of becoming the first “carbon neutral” nation over the next decade. The archipelago plans to shift to wind and solar power and buy carbon credits to offset emissions from tourists flying to visit its luxury vacation resorts.
So if Tuvalu or the Maldives can go green, so can others?
Maldives: “Paradise Drowning”, partly due to tourism?
The Maldives has a dilemma — it fears that rising seas caused by global warming could wipe the country off the map but it doesn’t want to restrict tourists who visit the Indian Ocean coral islands in aircraft whose emissions are a cause of climate change.
Read Melanie Lee and Neil Chatterjee’s story about the problem faced by President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who is writing a book about ”Paradise Drowning” but wants to keep the tourist-dependent economy going.
What should countries like the Maldives do?
Ending poverty is the overriding goal for developing nations, but how far should they take part in fighting global warming, caused by people in rich nations on the other side of the world?
Would high green taxes on visitors help? Or would that be just a symbolic pinprick in the problem of global warming that could drive holidaymakers to pick another tropical destination?
What do you think?
fact is every persone who know the maldives knows we are in grave danger due to climate change, still there mantality is to enjoy the paradise while they can rather than trying to preserve it
This is a pretty cool story, it amazes me how serious people can be about green energy when their part in the environmental decline is miniscule at best. They might not consume energy on a large scale but their commitment is commendable.
Their are a lot of projects that are in motion in the US right now, but it’s still just a small dent in the energy we consume on a day to day basis. I don’t think people actually realize just how much energy we are consuming as a nation. Their are websites like solar energy facts that you can read about it. It truly is staggering how much work is ahead of us to be free of the fossil fuel.