Dubai, Oct 17 (IANS) In a bid to draw attention to the threat of global warming, the Maldivian government Saturday became the first in the world to hold a cabinet meeting under water.
President Mohamed Nasheed and his ministers were in full scuba gear as they met for about 30 minutes at a depth of six metres just north of the capital Male, Al Jazeera reported.

Sitting round a horseshoe-shaped table, all but three of the 14-member cabinet took part in the meeting. The ministers used special white boards to communicate.

The ministers had undergone training over the past two months for the dive, Al Jazeera qouted Divers Association of Maldives (DAM) as saying.

The ministers signed their wetsuits and it would be auctioned on the website, protectmaldives.com, to raise money for coral reef protection in the atoll-chain.

The Maldives, located southwest of Sri Lanka, has become a vocal campaigner in the battle to halt rising sea levels.

In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that a rise in sea levels of 18 to 59 centimetres by 2100 would be enough to make the country virtually uninhabitable.

More than 80 percent of the country’s land, composed of coral islands scattered some 850 km across the equator, is less than one metre above sea level.