President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives told a Hay festival audience that grassroots 'street action' was needed to change the focus of the debate on climate change in the US
Patrick Barkham
A 1960s-style campaign of direct action must ignite on the streets as a catalyst for decisive action to combat climate change, according to President Mohamed Nasheed of the imperilled Maldives. Nasheed told the Hay festival that it was the United States, not China, that was the biggest obstacle to a global agreement to check carbon emissions.
Nasheed, who held an underwater meeting of his cabinet last autumn and is presiding over the relocation of people from some islands because of the effects of warming oceans and rising sea levels, put his hopes in the emergence of "huge" grassroots action after the failure of talks in Copenhagen in December.
"What we really need is a huge social 60s-style catalystic, dynamic street action," he said. "If the people in the US wish to change, it can happen. In the 60s and 70s, they've done that".
But he said the US was where the focus of pressure had to be, whereas China and India were actually far more receptive to the concept of climate change.
"My sense of China is that they tend to believe in climate change. My sense of the US is that a fair amount of them simply don't believe in it," he said.
Interviewed by Ed Miliband, the former energy and climate change secretary, on a video link from the Maldives, Nasheed spoke of the devastating effect that changes in sea levels are having on the islands, which are on average just 1.5 metres above sea level.
