'Climate change will be an election issue in five years'

Our expectations were littlehigher than what we are achieving right now. In terms of institution building,judiciary lacks the capacity to deliver. With the first multi-party election, wewere able to come up with the first fresh executive. With the firstparliamentary elections, we were able to come up with a fresh Parliament. Butwe never had anything fresh in the judiciary, so the judicial system is as itwas under the dictatorship.I trust them, but the thing is, to my mind,they do not know what is going on. They might, on one fine day, ask thepresident���s office for instructions on a sentence. The next judge might dosomething more ridiculous against the legislature or the executive, anotherjudge might start giving media interviews. Even in sentencing, they are unableto decide cases based on normal liberal judicialideals.We don���t want a mixture ofshariah. We are looking at a liberal judiciary. But you have to be mindful thatMaldives is a Muslim society. So, the shariah and the liberal judiciaryaren���t contradictory. Shariah can be as liberal as common law or Romanlaw.The other area is corruption. I can���t expect people to becompletely honest the very next day. Bad habits die hard. They have been at itfor a very long time. Also, initially we didn���t have a properanti-corruption commission. Another area is human rights. I can���t assureyou that there is notorture.I was tortured twice but that was long ago.But we do not want to torture our people. That is something we don���t wantto do at all. But there will always be some people at the penitentiarywho���ll do it. There is a good human rights commission and it is reportingwell but we need a serious programme of transition ofjustice.We don���t think Gayoomshould be worried. But he should take responsibility for his portion and saysorry.India is already helping. The prime minister was very quick ingiving us a soft loan of $100 million ��� 50 million in grant and 50 millionin loan. So, at least I got three months to sort things out. It gave us thatbreathing space. India is also very heavily willing to invest in lucrative areaslike tourism. India can assist us by building capacity in the judiciary. AndIndia can assist us so much by being the huge example that it is. We are very,very comfortable in our relationship with India. Maybe others misunderstandIndia but I don���t because maybe I know India and my government understandsthis country.We need shared responsibility. You can���t askcountries like India to stop consumption. We might be the victims but there aremillions and billions of others. I shouldn���t be so selfish to push forthat. Countries like India should invest heavily in renewable energy andmaintain lower emission levels and higher energy consumption. I think thewinners of the 21st century will be those who are bold enough to venture intonew technology. We are on the verge of a technological breakthrough, arevolution again that would have more impact than the industrial revolutionperhaps.I don���t think people are still thatconcerned about it. Countries still don���t have climate change as a majorelection issue. Until it becomes an election issue, politicians aren���tgoing to take notice of it. But it will become one in the next five years. Thereis a new generation of people growing up for whom climate change is a seriousproblem. Even as early as next summer, you���ll see huge number of peopleout on the streets, in the same fashion they were out in the 1960s, to save theworld. There are narratives about the end of the world in every culture andreligion, so there is going to be no backlash against the emergence of climatechange as the big issue.