Burning the Future: Policy inconsistencies in Maldives’ climate and resource management

REPORT

Burning the Future:

Policy Inconsistencies in Maldives’ climate and resource management

GAIA Asia Pacific | Zero Waste Maldives
About the Report

About the Report

  • This paper looks at the policy, technical, financial, and social risks of the Maldives’ Thilafushi waste-to-energy incineration project and the potential and ongoing harms from this ADB- and AIIB-funded WTE project. The publication argues that incineration undermines the country’s climate commitments, waste reduction goals, and transition toward safer, community-centered zero waste solutions. This loss and damage report is a collaborative research project with Zero Waste Maldives.

ADB financed the Thilafushi incinerator despite the Maldives’ weak environmental governance frameworks and poor implementation history with waste-to-energy projects. This is not climate action. It is a waste disposal project dressed up as climate mitigation, built on a system where segregation has been reduced to burnable and non-burnable waste so the plant gets fed. ADB should stop using weak waste laws as an entry point for foreign incinerator operators and fund the real solution: waste reduction, source segregation, composting, reuse, repair, recycling, and community-led zero waste systems.

— Ahmed Afrah Ismail, Co-Founder of Zero Waste Maldives