The photo shaped the world’s perception of the existential threat climate change poses to low-lying island nations.
It was a plan that made Shauna Aminath and her team extremely nervous. Aminath, who has formerly served as a Maldivian politician, was planning an underwater photoshoot in October 2009. They were to sink a enough tables and chairs for 11 of the Maldives’ top government officials, to the seabed for a cabinet meeting that would be photographed, filmed and broadcast across the world. Most of the ministers did not know how to dive, some had health problems and none were spring chickens.
If that wasn’t stressful enough, the government had put out a press release announcing the stunt and, immediately, the phone began to ring. Many major international newspapers and TV channels wanted to cover the event. “And I think that’s when we started to feel, ‘Oh, this is going to be much bigger than we thought,'” recalls Aminath, who at the time held the position of deputy undersecretary for policy of the Maldives’ President’s Office.
The team’s nerves were understandable. They were about to carry out a stunt that would become famous, and launch the Maldives and other small island nations to the forefront of global debate on climate change. The repercussions of the photos taken would reach far further than Aminath had hoped. Some credit it with helping to shape the world’s ambitious climate target. But the image and its legacy are not without controversy.
Why the Maldives wanted faster action
When Aminath speaks to me, 16 years after the photoshoot, the Indian Ocean is visible just outside her office window, indigo denim in colour, white waves fraying against the harbour wall. The fear of what rising seas, driven by climate change, will do to her country was the catalyst behind the image.
