Infrastructure building in the Maldives is in dire need of more financial and technical support, the country's environmental minister stated when she sat down with reporters from China.org.cn during the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, on December 4.

Minister for Environment and Energy of the Republic of the Maldives, Mariyam Shakeela, sat down with reporters from China.org.cn during the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar, on December 4.

High temperatures, storms, floods, and successive reef bleaching are raging through the Maldives, a typical small island state suffering from climate change, said Mariyam Shakeela, the country’s Minister for Environment and Energy. Under the given circumstances, providing water and electricity to all islands and handling water and food contamination all require a great deal of investment. Infrastructure construction, especially the creating of seawalls and harbors, is in urgent need for combating climate change in Maldives right now, she said.

"We do get funds for capacity building from the World Bank and through bilateral financial help, but little was focused on physical infrastructure construction," said Mariyam. "Building up seawalls will actually help us protect the islands." She stressed that there are currently 43 islands in the Maldives that need urgent adaptation measures.

"We are obviously in need of funds and technical assistance as we do not have the financial means, the technical know-how or the capacity to address these huge climate change issues," said Mariyam. She urged all the countries to take action right now as they have already been suffering from the adverse impact. "They are now real, no longer fiction or theories that someone has written down in a book," she said.

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