Few places have come to symbolize climate change as much as the island nation of the Maldives. The nation’s 1,200 small islands in the Indian Ocean sit, on average, about five feet above sea level. When Mohamed Nasheed became the first democratically elected president of the country in 2008, he made climate change his primary policy concern.
Filmmaker Jon Shenk followed the president during his first year in office in his film “The Island President”. The film culminates in the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit — but much has happened since then. President Nasheed resigned from office in what he has since called a coup, and the future of the country is again in political and environmental disarray.