Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The entire nation of Tuvalu, 11,000 people, is making preparations to relocate, reports Sophie Mak at Nikkei Asia . The nine atolls making up Tuvalu are for the most part only two feet above sea level, which is rising as our carbon dioxide emissions are causing surface ice to melt and ocean water volumes to expand because of added heat.
Tuvalu’s dilemma is not just a shame. It is a crime — a crime committed primarily by the United States and Britain in modern history. The guilt of the US is compounded by its actions during the past thirty years, when its companies and scientists and politicians knew that our tens of billions of annual metric tons of CO2 emissions cause global heating. These US business and political interests engaged in a sophisticated campaign of denialism that continues today, when ExxonMobil, Koch and other Big Oil interests have captured the Republican Party and destroyed the push made by the Biden administration finally to move the country toward low-carbon energy.
We have built in more tens of billions of annual emissions for decades to come, certainly pushing the world past a 1.5º C. (2.7º F.) increase in the average global surface temperature over pre-industrial times. Climate scientists fear that going past that watershed risks throwing the world’s climate into chaos, a chaos that will only increase in severity with every degree we heat up the earth thereafter. It is worth fighting against every degree of increase, since the less the world warms the fewer catastrophes our children and grandchildren will face. But Trumpism has probably doomed us to surge past this first landmark.
And that is why fully half of Tuvalu’s capital, Funafuti, is in danger of being submerged within twenty-five years. Since we will get anywhere from four to six feet of sea level rise within one human lifetime, Tuvalu’s demise is already built in.
Australia is offering residency visas to the people of Tuvalu, allowing several hundred people a year to come to study or work. The arrangement envisages that many will return home after some years, but I think everyone knows that there will be little to return to after a while. Already, half the islanders have applied for this Australian visa. All 11,000 and their descendants are going to have to find somewhere else to live.
Tuvalu is disappearing due to climate change and locals are moving to Australia | 7.30
Australia didn’t make the offer to Tuvalu out of the goodness of Canberra’s heart. China is sniffing around the South Pacific islands looking to lease naval bases and had approached Tuvalu, which was traditionally pro-West and pro-Taiwan. But now the people of Tuvalu are set to lose everything, and it would be nice to have a windfall of Chinese yuan in return for a base, to cushion their losses.
So Australia engaged in preemptive diplomacy and offered these residency permits on condition that Tuvalu subordinate its foreign policy to Australia. The Tuvaluans granted residency permits will have to get jobs and pay their own way, but those that do will be earning hard currency and likely putting down a marker for a future life in Australia.
Photo of Tuvaluans by Winston Chen on Unsplash
It is ironic that these dramatic developments are occurring in the South Pacific at the very moment when the International Court of Justice, the main judicial body of the United Nations, has written that:
355. “The Court notes that many participants voiced strong concerns about sea level rise and its implications, especially for the stability of maritime zones. They contend that sea level rise should not have the effect of diminishing the maritime entitlements of States. They argue that existing baselines, maritime entitlements, maritime delimitations and statehood should be preserved, notwithstanding the physical effects of sea level rise, including coastal recession. They further contend that the complete submergence of their territory should not deprive them of their maritime entitlements.
356. “The Court notes that the IPCC has described sea level rise as “unavoidable” and has concluded with a high level of confidence that, as a result, the risks for coastal ecosystems, people and infrastructure will continue to increase (IPCC, 2023 Summary for Policymakers, p. 15, Statement B.2.2) . . .
363. “Several participants argued that sea level rise also poses a significant threat to the territorial integrity and thus to the very statehood of small island States. In their view, in the event of the complete loss of a State’s territory and the displacement of its population, a strong presumption in favour of continued statehood should apply. In the view of the Court, once a State is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood . . .
365. “The Court concludes from the foregoing that the legal obligation to co-operate requires States, in the context of sea level rise, to work together with a view to achieving equitable solutions, taking into account the rights of affected States and those of their populations.”
I read them to be saying that the people of Tuvalu will continue constitute a nation and to own any mineral or other resources under their atolls even if the waters rise above the islands and that other states have a responsibility to find ways of making reparations to them for their loss of a homeland. I think it is implied that Tuvaluans could prevail in a lawsuit at the ICJ against the carbon polluters. Though how you could get Trump to pay up isn’t clear, and has never been clear if you follow the history of his stiffing his own contractors.
The Tuvaluans are only the tip of the iceberg, alas. Hundreds of millions of us are likely to be displaced from our homes by global heating and its effects over the next few decades. That toll will only rise if we don’t stop driving gasoline cars, burning coal and fossil gas for electricity and heating, and if we don’t find less carbon-intensive ways to build buildings, farm and engage in other essential activities.
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