Tuvalu residents prepare for world’s first planned migration of an entire nation — and climate change is to blame
More than 5,000 people applied for a gender migration visa which offers residents of an island in the Pacific an escape from the worst effects of climate change.
Visa requests opened up to the inhabitants of Tuvalu on June 16 and end today (July 18). Under his terms, 280 Tuvaluans can move to Australia each year from 2025 to a voting system. Four days After the opening of the ballot, 3,125 tuvaluans – approximately a third of the national population of 11,000 people – had already signed up for the chance to receive the visa. As of July 11, a total of 5,157 people had applied, Nikkei Asia reported.
“This is the first agreement of its species all over the world, offering a way of mobility of dignity as the climatic impacts aggravate”, representatives of the Australian government said to the new scientist in a declaration.
Representatives said they have recognized “climate change to the devastating impact on livelihoods, security and well-being of Countries and vulnerable climateespecially in the Pacific region. “”
Tuvalu is halfway between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific Ocean. The country consists of nine low atolls – islands in the shape of a ring surrounded by coral reefs. The highest point of Tuvalu is 15 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level, but the average elevation of the country is just 6 feet (2 m) above sea levelmaking it extremely vulnerable to elevation of sea level, floods and overvoltages of storms due to climate change.
In 2023, the sea levels around Tuvalu were 6 inches (15 centimeters) higher than they were 30 years ago, A study found. A large part of the land and critical infrastructure in the country will be lower than a high level by 2050, the results indicate.
In relation: The world’s sea level increased by 125 feet after the last ice age
The elevation of sea level also threatens water supply, because seawater can infiltrate a freshwater aquifers. This happens because seawater grows more inside the land, flowing more and more in aquifers both horizontally and vertically. Tuvalu residents must already raise their ground crops to maintain salinity remotely, Bateteba AseluA doctoral student from Tuvaluan in climate change at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told New Scientist.
The new visa program, officially called Treatise on the Australia-Tuvalu Falespili Union, was signed at the end of 2023 and entered into force in 2024. It is the first planned world migration of an entire nation, giving residents of Tuvalu the right to live, to work and to study in Australia with the same access to health and education benefits as Australian citizens. Visa recipients are also not forced to move, and they can go home as often as they want.
“It is potentially a precedent, a first global where a migration route is explicitly linked to climate change and elevation of sea level”, ” Wesley MorganA research partner at the University of New South South Gales Institute, told New Scientist.
Australia could make similar arrangements with Other Nations of the Pacific Island Like Kiribati in the future, Morgan said.
The results of the ballot of this year are expected by the end of July, and the first migrants could arrive in Australia by the end of 2025. The annual ceiling of 280 people aims to prevent a massive brain flight and economic difficulties in Tuvalu, Reuters reported – And that could change in the coming years if problems arise.
Combined with other Tuvalu emigration, the new visa means that almost 4% of the country’s population could leave each year, Jane McAdamA law professor at the University of South Wales in Australia wrote in The conversation. If the figures remain almost the same long-term and people do not return home, almost 40% of Tuvalu residents will have left in 10 years, she wrote.
