Climate Adaptation Infrastructure in the Maldives

At a lunchtime seminar at the University of Cambridge in England, Pulitzer Center grantee Jesse Chase-Lubitz will speak about her reporting on land reclamation in the Maldives.

The Maldives is one of the most popular luxury tourism destinations. But it is also one of the countries most vulnerable to sea level rise. In an effort to keep the Maldives above water and thriving, the government is investing billions into land reclamation, which involves dredging sand from the ocean and piling it up to create new land. The justification is largely economic, but it’s also meant to help the country defend its coasts against rising seas. However, many say that the costs aren’t worth the ecological and economic damage.  

Chase-Lubitz went to the Maldives in November to investigate one of the most recent land reclamation projects. Her presentation will examine the consequences of massive infrastructure manipulation. 

Chase-Lubitz is a freelance climate journalist based in London. A Pulitzer Center grantee, she is the writer of Nature Briefing: Anthropocene, a weekly newsletter for Nature magazine about the footprint of humans on Earth. Chase-Lubitz also writes for Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, Yahoo News, Foreign Policy, The American Prospect, and other outlets. 

In addition to independent freelancing, Chase-Lubitz co-writes a weekly newsletter on climate change adaptation infrastructure called Edifice.

She recently completed a master's in environmental policy and regulation at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she conducted original research into Dutch sea level rise adaptation architecture within the Netherlands and Indonesia. She also worked for the Department of Geography and the Environment at LSE, assisting with research on a project called Power and Equity in the Production of Climate Knowledge.