马尔代夫拟建海上家园应对陆沉

        因海平面不断上升，印度洋岛国马尔代夫将在2100年面临陆沉，大批国民将可能无处安身。为了应对这一危机，马尔代夫政府于上月跟一家荷兰公司签约，打算建造一片海上家园，解决海平面上升后国民的安置问题。据悉，这个项目将包括一个18洞的高尔夫球场，一个会议中心以及民居建筑，目前还在可行性研究阶段。马尔代夫在1997年就曾经在首都马累附近修造人工岛来缓解人口拥挤的状况，除此之外，马尔代夫总统还曾经表示会考虑在其他国家购买土地来安置本国国民。

The Maldives faces the threat of extinction from rising sea levels, but the government said on Thursday it was looking to the future with plans to build homes and a golf course that float.

An increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimeters would make the Maldives -- a nation of tiny coral islands in the Indian Ocean -- virtually uninhabitable by 2100, the UN's climate change panel has warned.

President Mohamed Nasheed has vowed a fight for survival, and last month he signed a deal with a Dutch company to study proposals for a floating structure that could support a convention centre, homes and an 18-hole golf course.

"It is still early stages and we are awaiting a report on the feasibility," a government official who declined to be named said.

The company, Dutch Docklands, is currently building floating developments in the Netherlands and Dubai.

There was no immediate comment from the firm but its website said it undertook projects that make "land from water by providing large-scale floating constructions to create similar conditions as on land".

The Maldives began work on an artificial island known as the Hulhumale near the crowded capital island of Male in 1997 and more than 30,000 people have been settled there to ease congestion.

The city, which has a population of 100,000, is already protected from rising sea levels by a 30-million-dollar sea wall, and the government is considering increasingly imaginative ways to combat climate change.

Nasheed, who staged the world's first underwater cabinet meeting in October to highlight his people's plight, has even spoken of buying land elsewhere in the world to enable Maldivians to relocate if their homes are submerged.

He has also pledged to turn his nation into a model for the rest of the world by becoming "carbon neutral" by 2020.

His plan involves ending fossil fuel use and powering all vehicles and buildings from "green" sources such as burning coconut husks.