First Joint Committee: soon projects on warning systems, water treatment and renewable

Rome, March 10, 2016 - The Ministries of the Environment of Italy and the Maldives have adopted, during the first meeting of the Joint Committee, which initiates cooperation between the two countries, the Work Plan that establishes objectives and guidelines for future activities that shall take place within the framework of the Climate Change Protocol signed in December 2015.

There are three main areas of cooperation identified by the partners:

• strengthening of the environmental risk management system, with particular reference to the collection, management and use of relevant data;
• water desalination through the identification of a technology that allows superior energy savings;
• promotion of renewable energy with the ambitious goal of investigating the possible use of energy produced by the ocean (energy from tides or currents).

Following the Joint Committee meeting, work is underway on the definition of project proposals. In particular, on the basis of the needs expressed by the Maldivian counterpart, regarding the management of the environmental risk linked to the weather alert system, a project that enhances the terrestrial observation system and improves the range of information in the Maldives is under development. This provides a local operational autonomy in the generation and dissemination of terrestrial observation services.