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“The existential threat we face is not of our making. But it will remake us.”
Going Under
Tuvalu, a small island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is planning to evacuate all of its over 11,000 inhabitants, due to rising sea levels caused by climate change that mean, essentially, that the low-lying country has no feasible future.
As Wired reports, the nation signed an agreement with Australia in 2023 to set up a migration scheme in which 280 residents will permanently settle on the continent per year through a climate visa program.
It’s a sobering reminder of the incredibly damaging effects that global warming is having on our planet. Tuvalu is only 6.5 feet above sea level on average, meaning that rising tides will almost certainly be devastating to the region. Fierce storms, facilitated by rising temperatures, could make matters even worse for an already very vulnerable population.
Rising Tides
Australia’s climate visas are allocated based on a lottery system. This week, the Australian High Commission of Tuvalu revealed that it had received “extremely high levels of interest in the ballot with 8,750 registrations, which includes family members of primary registrants.”
In other words, moving every Tuvaluan is taking on increasing urgency even as demand for the program spikes.
“When combined with other Pacific pathways to Australia and New Zealand, nearly 4 percent of the population could migrate each year,” UNSW Sydney research fellow Jane McAdam wrote in a recent piece for The Conversation. “Within a decade, close to 40 percent of the population could have moved — although some people may return home or go backwards and forwards.”
Besides relocating all its residents, Tuvalu has attempted to 3D-scan its islands to preserve its cultural heritage if they’re lost to the waters.
Tuvalu is far from the only nation facing a crisis caused by sea levels that are rising even faster than predicted. According to the UN Human Development Program, increased coastal flooding could endanger over 70 million people worldwide. By 2050, hundreds of highly populated cities will face increased risks of flooding thanks to climate change.
According to the UN, rising sea levels are already impacting one billion people worldwide.
“The existential threat we face is not of our making,” said Tuvalu’s prime minister, Feleti Teo, during a September speech at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “But it will remake us.”
More on rising sea levels: Scientists Horrified by What They Found Under the Doomsday Glacier
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