The Maldivian government on Monday flagged off construction of a 200-million-dollar wind farm as part of efforts to make the low-lying archipelago carbon neutral by 2020.
The wind turbine facility on a small islet just north of the capital Male is expected to be completed within 20 months, an official said, adding that it would supply more than half the nation's electricity needs.
Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said the setting up of the 75-megawatt farm would reduce emissions by 25 percent in his low-lying atoll nation of 330,000 Sunni Muslims.
"We are doing this because we have an environment conscience and it is economical to do so," Nasheed said.
The build-own-and-operate project is being run by the British-based Falcon Energy company.
Nasheed, whose cabinet met underwater last month in a stunt aimed at highlighting the Maldives' vulnerability to rising sea levels, said he wanted the country to be a showcase for renewable and clean energy.
In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that an increase in sea levels of just 18 to 59 centimetres (seven to 24 inches) would make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable by 2100.
More than 80 percent of the tiny nation, famed as a tourist paradise because of its secluded beaches, coral reefs and white-sand beaches, is less than a metre (three feet four inches) above sea level.
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