A Pacific island nation on the front line of the climate change threat is building land to try to hold back rising sea levels.
But as the majority of Tuvalu’s population applies to relocate to Australia, a haunting question is being confronted: what happens to a country if the people have to leave?…
In 2023, Australia and Tuvalu signed the historic Falepili Union treaty — a world-first climate migration and economic security agreement allowing Tuvaluans to permanently relocate to Australia through a special visa pathway.
Between 65 and 80 per cent of Tuvaluans applied for the visa in its inaugural year in 2025 — roughly 8,700 people of its estimated 10,000–13,000 eligible global population — making it one of the highest migration application rates on Earth…
The Falepili treaty has secured one pathway to higher ground but at the same time Tuvalu is undertaking the biggest construction project in its history…
The reclaimed land is expected to hold homes, infrastructure and future government buildings.
Tuvalu Climate Change Minister Maina Talia’s house was once on the foreshore, where stretches of new land now sit.
He says the project is about more than survival, but warns that engineering alone won’t solve the climate crisis.
“Land in Tuvalu means life,” he says…
Source: ABC News
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Tuvalu Climate Change Minister Maina Talia appears in the video ‘Ecological Conscience’, part of the research project, Doing Theology from the Existential Peripheries, of the Migrants and Refugees Section (M&R) of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Holy See. It can be viewed here