Energy Production and Waste Management: The Human Ecology of Maldivian Islands

This chapter discusses environmental policies and socio-environmental interactions on local islands by presenting an overview of the main chal- lenges and complexities that characterize waste management and energy production in the Maldives. At local level, these issues may be understood as human activities with a heavy impact on small island environments. At supralocal levels (both national and international), they may be seen more as part of the transition towards sustainable solutions and key actions within climate change mitigation and adaptation policies (Peterson, 2013; Colombo et al., 2014; UNEP 2014; Malatesta et al., 2015; Mohamed et al., 2016c; Malatesta and Schmidt di Friedberg, 2017; Ministry of Environment and Energy, 2017c; Liuetal., 2018). The Second National Communication of Maldives to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Mohamed et al., 2016), by reporting data gathered by the National Green- house Gas (GHG) Inventory of Maldives, indicated energy production and waste management as the primary anthropic factors determining GHG emissions at national level