Days after the Maldives submitted its ambitious net-zero emission target 2030, Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), congratulated the nation for its ambitious target. 

During a Climate Action Summit, held last year in the UN Headquarters, Maldivian President Solih submitted an updated Nationally Determinant Contribution. Solih said the country could achieve net-zero emission as early as 2030, given it receives financial and technological support from the international community. 

The archipelago has remained at the forefront of international climate change activism. For the last 30 years, the country has consistently pushed the cause on multiple international forums. 

Being a nation of scattered islands, the Maldives remains at the received end of climate-induced effects. 

Speaking at the summit, Solih reaffirmed the country’s commitment to fighting climate change by committing ambitious goals of net zero-emission. He said the country compelled to take actions to fight the immediacy of climate change as one of the countries most affected by climate change.

Long before the governments around the world took note of threats posed by climate change, the Maldives, being a founding member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), has been highlighting the issue since 1990- a year the alliance came into being.