More than one-third of the people in the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu, which scientists predict would be submerged by rising seas, have applied for a landmark climate visa to migrate to Australia, according to official figures.
Tuvaluan Permanent Representative to the UN Tapugao Falefou on Sunday said he was “startled by the huge number of people vying for this opportunity.”
Tuvalu, one of the countries at greatest risk from climate change, which experts say is boosting sea levels, has a population of 11,000 on its nine atolls scattered across the Pacific between Australia and Hawaii.
Photo: Reuters
Since applications for Australia’s visa lottery opened this month, 1,124 people have registered, with family members bringing the total seeking the visa to 4,052 under the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty, which established a “special human mobility pathway” between Australia and Tuvalu.
Applications close on July 18, with an annual cap of 280 visas designed to ensure migration to Australia does not cause brain drain from Tuvalu, officials said when the treaty was announced in 2023.
The visa would allow Tuvalu residents to live, work and study in Australia, accessing health benefits and education on the same basis as Australian citizens.
“Moving to Australia under the Falepili Union treaty will in some way provide additional remittance to families staying back,” he said.
By 2050, NASA scientists project daily tides would submerge half the main atoll of Funafuti, home to 60 percent of Tuvalu’s residents, where villagers cling to a strip of land as narrow as 20m. That forecast assumes a 1m rise in sea levels, while the worst case, double that, would put 90 percent of Funafuti under water.
Tuvalu, whose mean elevation is just 2m, has experienced a sea-level rise of 15cm over the past three decades, one-and-a-half times the global average.
It has built 7 hectares of artificial land, and is planning more, which it hopes would stay above the tides until 2100.
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