The Pacific nation of Tuvalu is staring at a climate change catastrophe and its people are already preparing for a future after it. Nearly 80% of its population has applied for a special ‘climate visa’ to live in Australia.
In the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, Australia is offering visas to Tuvalu citizens each year under a climate migration deal. “We received extremely high levels of interest in the ballot with 8,750 registrations, which includes family members of primary registrants,” the Australian high commission in Tuvalu said in a statement, AFP reported.
This number makes up 82 per cent of the Tuvalu’s official population of 10,643, according to the 2022 census.
But only 280 visas are offered every year. That would roughly take 40 years, not accounting for population growth, for everyone to move.
Scientists fear Tuvalu will be uninhabitable within the next 80 years.
Two of the archipelago’s nine coral atolls have already largely disappeared under the waves.
