LONDON — The U.N. climate summit in Cancun, Mexico, is nearing its end, and while the ending will not be as rancorous as last year's train wreck in Copenhagen, there will be no global deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions this year either. However, there is some hope for the longer run.
Mohamed Nasheed is the president of the Maldives, a group of low-lying islands in the Indian Ocean that will be among the first to vanish as the sea-level rises in a warming world. That's why he is so outspoken in challenging the current negotiating position of the developing countries.
"When I started hearing about this climate change issue, I started hearing developing countries say 'we have a right to emit carbon because we have to develop,' " he told the BBC recently. "It is true, we need to develop; but equating development to carbon emissions I thought was quite silly."