Maldives officials hold underwater meeting to highlight threat of global warming

Girifushi, Maldives: Maldives officials have held an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the threat of global warming to the lowest-lying nation on earth.

President Mohammad Nasheed and 13 other officials donned scuba gear and used hand signals at a table on the sea floor - 20 feet (6 meters) below the surface of a lagoon off Girifushi.

The Cabinet hopes to draw attention to fears that rising ocean levels could swamp this Indian Ocean archipelago within a century. Its islands average 7 feet (2.1 meters) above sea level.

Saturday's meeting comes ahead of a major U.N. climate change conference in December in Copenhagen at which a successor to the Kyoto Protocol will be negotiated.

Greenhouse gases are blamed for causing global warming by trapping heat in the atmosphere.