Global community must listen to scientists' advice: Maldivian president

Warning that the problem of climate change cannot be overcome through "messy" political agreement, Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed today asked the global community to listen to advice of scientists to deal with the issue.

Nasheed, whose country is one of the nations most vulnerable to rising sea levels due to increase in temperature, made the remarks at a conference on climate change in Bandos island near the Maldivian capital of Male.

"As Copenhagen (climate conference next month) looms, and negotiators frantically search for a solution, it is easy to think that climate change is like any other international issue," Nasheed told the two-day conference which began today.

He said that whatever course of action "we take must be based on the latest advice of climate scientists. Not on the advice of politicians like us."

"It is easy to assume that it can be solved by a messy political compromise between powerful states. But the fact of the matter is, we cannot negotiate with the laws of physics. We cannot cut a deal with mother nature," he said.

"We have to learn to live within the fixed planetary boundaries that nature has set and it is increasingly clear that we are living way beyond those planetary means," he said.