Former President Mohamed Nasheed has said that he does not believe that the Maldives needs to be relying on “aid” to save it.

The former President made the comment while speaking at a panel discussion held at the University of Michigan on Monday night. He spoke on various issues, including the current state of the Maldives, how his childhood led to where he is now, and adaptation to climate change.

 “In my view the most important adaptation measures [to climate change] are democracy and governance,” said Nasheed.

Highlighting that “the window of opportunity to save the Maldives is probably lost now,” Nasheed said that its time to think about adaptation.

He said that he does not believe that "the standard, perceived engineering and wisdom" are going to work in saving the Maldives, instead saying that “we should be looking at more biological adaptations.”

“You can grow a reef, you can save your beaches from erosion through mangroves and we can be looking into more biological measures,” said the former President.

Nasheed, who also recently received the Courage Award at the Geneva Summit, said that he has started thinking about climate change “in a more capitalistic manner,” adding that the “profit motive must be brought into save the planet.”

“Of course, climate change is a human rights issue, an ethical issue, all that is there but let’s start talking about it as an economic issue. That low carbon development is far more economically viable, and sustainable. I think and I do believe that there is a low carbon strategy, that we can become rich and carbon emission is not necessarily equal to development,” said Nasheed.

He emphasized that its far less expensive to produce electricity through renewable energy than through diesel.

He said that the development investments can “come from the resources [we] have.”

Furthermore, Nasheed said that developing countries accuse developed countries of hindering their development, claiming they had emitted carbon for hundreds of years.

While the former president, and climate hero called for more biological measures to climate change, Maldives’ government has been more keen on development and mass tourism.

In an interview to The Guardian, Director of the government's Marine Research Centre, Shiham Adam said that Maldives is not going to sink “next year”, adding that it has more “immediate needs.”

 “Development must go on, jobs are needed, we have the same aspirations as people in the US or Europe,” Shiham had said.

He added that the Maldives "needs money to survive". 

According to the report on The Guardian, the Maldivian government accepts that its plan “will increase carbon emissions,” arguing that it “has the right to develop.”

Minister of Tourism and Energy, Ibrahim Thoriq said that “the dream [of making the Maldives carbon neutral] is over.”

Highlighting that Maldives “needs development,” Housing Minister, Dr. Mohamed Muizzu told Climate Home that Nasheed had shown a dream to the people.

“With Nasheed it was a dream. We do not need cabinet meetings under water. We do not need to go anywhere. We need development,” said Muizzu.