Maldives outlines progress on carbon neutral plan
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
The Maldives has made significant progress since last year in beginning the move towards becoming the world’s first carbon neutral country, the country’s President, Mohamed Nasheed, announced at the Six Senses SLOWLIFE Symposium at Soneva Fushi resort. President Nasheed outlined several areas in which the Maldives government has made substantial progress which include the publishing the new carbon neutral electricity plan online, and inviting ‘crowd-sourcing’ comments from experts worldwide. The country’s has also committed to a new target to generate 60% of its electricity via solar power by 2020, and reduce electricity emissions by 80% without putting up the cost of power to consumers. The Maldives has also signed the first contract under the new ‘feed-in-tariff’ between the state electricity company and a Male hotel chain to supply solar power onto the grid.
A new import regime by the Maldivian Transport Ministry to ensure that in future electric cars will be a third of the price of conventional petrol cars has been introduced, and new policies to encourage the uptake of renewable energy and marine transport have also been taken up. The country has pledged to spend 2% of national income on renewable energy deployment in the country.
“There are encouraging signs – India and China are listening much more than before. They see the opportunity for renewable energy growth,” President Nasheed said.