Climate change has become such a common term that many of us have now become desensitized to its weight. We have been warned about it for decades, but many of us in first world countries have yet to feel the effects of it in life-changing ways. We are lucky. Other places, many of which an alarming amount of people have never heard of, don’t share our same fortune. One of these places is the nation of Tuvalu.
Unfortunately, Tuvalu is on the frontlines in terms of feeling the effects of climate change, and it could be one of the first countries to be wiped out as a result. Scientists in a United Nations ESCAP report estimated that Tuvalu could be uninhabitable in the next 50-100 years. The islands rarely rise even three meters above sea level, and the widest part of any island is just 200 meters while the narrowest part of the main island, Fongafale, is a minuscule 20 meters wide. As the oceans continue to rise, Tuvalu continues to sink.
The rising sea temperatures have also been contributing to coral bleaching, which has decreased the activity of marine life surrounding Tuvalu. This spells major trouble because tuna fishing is a critical part of Tuvalu’s economy, so the damaged marine ecosystem has put an already economically-strained country under even further stress. Additionally, the bleached coral releases toxins that the nearby fish ingest; Tuvaluans then catch and eat these fish unbeknownst to the fact that they carry dangerous toxins with them. This has caused an alarming number of fish poisoning-related illnesses. With marine life becoming more scarce and dangerous, locals have tried to turn towards more plant-based food. However, the 100% reliance on rainwater, and the growing regularity of droughts (due to climate change) in the dry season has made any sort of farming or gardening impossible.
The increased temperature of the air over earth’s oceans have caused tropical storms to increase in number and in intensity. In 2015, category 5 cyclone Pam displaced just under 50% of the nation’s population, and homes and crops were decimated. Given that Tuvalu is so small, natural events on the scale such as cyclone Pam can have a devastating and lasting impact on the entire community. As the mitigation of climate change continues to fail, the likelihood of Tuvalu getting battered by cyclones is only going up.
With all of these pessimistic and disturbing facts in mind, what is being done to help the Tuvaluans?
One solution that has been proposed by surrounding countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji is relocation. But this is truly a last resort in the minds of many Tuvaluans. Relocation would wipe away so much of the culture that Tuvaluans possess. Their way of life could be completely stripped away as they are forced to integrate into a new country with different customs. And on the climate front, relocation is not even a solution at all. Relocating these people won’t save their islands from sinking or from being ravaged by increasing amounts of rogue waves.
So what other viable solutions are there? One of the most imminent solutions is a joint initiative on the part of the Tuvalu government and the UNDP. This initiative includes things such as the construction of sea walls, beach nourishment, and concrete and rock revetments to help build coastal resilience around three of Tuvalu’s nine islands. This seven-year project was originally expected to be completed in May of 2024, though it has been delayed multiple times. There is also a plan to dredge and reclaim land on the biggest island, which would raise the land about 10 meters above sea level, thus reducing the chances of a storm drowning the buildings and homes on this island. Unfortunately, this plan currently has no financial backing. Lastly, there are also talks of constructing an energy wall around the atolls, which would diminish the power of violent waves before they reach Tuvalu’s shores.
A great long-term idea that the Tuvaluans have begun implementing has to do with their school curriculum. In the last few years, every class has put much a much greater emphasis on teaching about the effects of climate change and also ways to alleviate it. This way, future generations of Tuvluans will be more ready and more knowledgeable about the challenges that will be staring them in the face. This is a strategy that I think will greatly benefit Tuvalu in the long run, as members of this nation will be more prepared to assert themselves in the global conversation of climate change.
Despite all of these ideas, the reality is that the country is still sinking, and an incredibly unique and beautiful culture is sinking along with it. If more attention isn’t immediately brought to countries like Tuvalu, they will vanish without many people realizing they even existed.