Muizzu seeks easier funding to battle waves in low-lying Maldives

The Maldives on Saturday demanded international funding to battle rising sea levels, saying the low-lying Indian Ocean archipelago was being unfairly excluded from the most generous support measures.

“The Maldives is liable for just 0.003% of global emissions, but is one of the

rst countries to endure the existential consequences of the climate crisis,” President Mohamed Muizzu wrote in Britain’s

Guardian newspaper.

“Wealthier nations have a moral responsibility to communities like ours.”

SIDS conference

His comments came ahead of a once-a-decade conference of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) — many of them known as luxury tourism destinations but threatened by rising sea levels — he will cochair in Antigua and Barbuda, which opens on Monday.

SIDS receive “only about 14% of the nance that the least developed countries receive”, he said.

According to the IMF, the Maldives has a higher GDP per capita than Chile, Mexico, Malaysia or China, but Mr. Muizzu called gross domestic product a “legacy metric”.

$500 million needed

Mr. Muizzu has said that his country needs about $500 million to mitigate the e¤ects of climate change and the tourismdependent economy was unable to raise the money on its own.