The Maldives’ geography makes it the bellwether nation of climate crisis

Evidence

This confluence of factors—low altitude; high population density; a long, threatened coastline made more vulnerable by a dying protective barrier of coral reefs; and ironically, a tourist trade as a paradise untouched by time—have combined to turn the Maldives into the canary in the mine shaft of the climate crisis. — Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism…, 807