World “leaders” have been arriving in Paris by the scores over the weekend – there will be more than a hundred prime ministers and presidents making speeches as the climate talks open on Monday.

But most of them won’t, in fact, be leaders on climate. And one who truly is – Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives – will be languishing in a cell on a prison island in his nation, instead of pressing the case for carbon cuts.

Nasheed was the star – almost the only star – of the disastrous Copenhagen climate conference six years ago. Six years ago today he was the first head of state to arrive, and he went straight from the airport to a packed meeting hall where he led a giant crowd in chant after chant. “My message to you is to continue the protests. Continue after Copenhagen. Continue despite the odds. And eventually, together, we will reach that crucial number: Three - five - oh.”

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He was electric. A tiny man, he was swallowed up in a sea of TV cameras and boom mikes the second his speech was done, but the crowd didn’t want to let him go. And with good reason. No one had ever before managed to quite sum up the predicament of the front-line states with as much wit and power. Nasheed, for instance, had taught his entire cabinet to scuba dive, so they could hold a formal meeting underwater against the backdrop of a dying coral reef, there to pass a resolution for the UN demanding action to return the planet to an atmosphere of 350 parts per million CO2. He climbed up on the roof of his own presidential house with his own presidential hammer to install solar panels. He pledged that his archipelago nation would become the first on earth to go carbon neutral.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maldives’ Mohamed Nasheed signs a declaration during the first underwater cabinet meeting in the Maldives, 17 October 2009. Photograph: Ho New / Reuters/Reuters

And all around the world people responded. Since the highest point in the Maldivian archipelago is mere meters above sea level, he spoke with a credibility few others could muster.

And he spoke, too, with the credibility that came from fighting for freedom. The Mandela of the Indian Ocean, they called him, after his long struggle to oust the dictator that had ruled the Maldives for three decades. He’d spent five years in prison before forcing the elections that brought him to power, and turned his incredibly beautiful nation into a democracy.

Temporarily, as it turned out. The satraps of the old dictator never gave up, and eventually they pushed him aside in a military coup. Now, as before, he is in prison – the latest reports I’ve heard say his health is failing, and that he’s not been given proper medical attention. Amnesty International and the great human rights lawyer Amal Clooney are doing their best – but they’re up against thugs, pure and simple.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters of former president of Maldives Mohamed Nasheed call for his release in Male’, Maldives. Photograph: Sinan Hussain/AP

Thugs who, among other things, have abandoned plans for carbon neutrality in the Maldives. Indeed there are reports that the country will open its waters for oil-drilling. Oh, the Maldives will have a presence in Paris this week, and doubtless its “leaders” will speak fine words. But they won’t mean anything. Not like Nasheed’s, anyway, which captivated the world:

“I am not a scientist, but I know that one of the laws of physics, is that you cannot negotiate with the laws of physics. Three – Five – Oh is a law of atmospheric physics. You cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature. And we don’t intend to try.”