Tuvalu and its 11,000 people, who live on nine atolls scattered across the Pacific, are running out of time.
Fukanoe Laafai would like to start a family. But she is struggling to reconcile her plans with rising sea levels that scientists predict will submerge much of her homeland by the time her children would reach early adulthood.
“I think we are about to sink,” said the 29-year-old clerical worker.
Tuvalu, whose mean elevation is just 2 m (6.56 ft), has experienced a sea-level rise of 15 cm (5.91 inches) over the past three decades, one-and-a-half times the global average.
By 2050, NASA scientists project that daily tides will submerge half of the main atoll of Funafuti, home to 60% of Tuvalu’s residents, where villages cling to a strip of land as narrow as 20 m in parts.
Life is already changing: Tuvaluans rely on rainwater tanks and a central raised garden for growing vegetables, because saltwater inundation has ruined groundwater, affecting crops.
A landmark climate and security treaty with Australia announced in 2023 provides a pathway for 280 Tuvaluans annually to migrate to Australia, starting next year.
On a recent visit to Tuvalu and in interviews with more than a dozen residents and officials, Reuters found anxiety about rising seas and the prospect of permanent relocation.
Four of the officials revealed progress on an emerging diplomatic strategy to establish a legal basis for Tuvalu’s continued existence as a sovereign state – even after it disappears beneath the waves.
Specifically, Tuvalu aims to change the law of the sea to retain control of a vast maritime zone with lucrative fishing rights, and sees two pathways to achieve that: a test case in the international maritime tribunal, or a United Nations resolution, Reuters reporting found.
Frustration with the global response to Tuvalu’s plight, even after the breakthrough deal with Australia, had led Tuvalu’s diplomats to shift tactics this year, two of the officials said.
The new approach and methods have not been previously reported.
Tuvalu’s land amounts to just 26 square kilometres. But it is dispersed across a far-flung archipelago, creating an exclusive economic zone of some 900,000 square kilometres – more than twice the size of California.
In this close-knit and deeply Christian society, residents told Reuters they feared relocation would mean the loss of their culture.
“Some will have to go and some will want to stay here,” said Maani Maani, 32, an IT worker in the main town of Fongafale.
“It’s a very hard decision to make,” he added. “To leave a country, you leave the culture you were born with, and culture is everything – family, your sister, your brother. It is everything.”
For now, Tuvalu is attempting to buy time. Construction of sea walls and barriers to guard against worsening storm surges is occurring on Funafuti, which is 400 m at its widest. Tuvalu has built 7 hectares (17.3 acres) of artificial land, and is planning more, which it hopes will stay above the tides until 2100.
By then, NASA projects a sea-level rise of 1 m in Tuvalu, or double that in a worst case, putting 90% of Funafuti under water.
Having secured an exit path for its population, Tuvalu’s diplomats are fighting for legal certainty about what happens when a low-lying island state is swallowed by the sea.
Under Tuvalu’s plan to secure such legal assurance, some residents would stay as long as possible, ensuring a continued presence to help underpin the nation’s enduring sovereignty, according to two Tuvalu officials and the terms of the treaty with Australia.
The International Law Association, in a June report on sea-level rise, concluded that a resolution by the U.N. General Assembly was the clearest way to provide certainty on maritime boundaries and climate change.
The report’s author, David Freestone, who is also a legal adviser to COSIS, told Reuters the U.N. meeting on Wednesday will be “important to gauge the mood” for a proposal to the U.N. General Assembly.
While Tuvalu’s officials seek international assurances, residents are grappling with tangible impacts of climate change – and the prospect of saying goodbye.
“Everyone is thinking about it,” said Maani, the IT worker. King tides are getting scary, he said, and he worries what will happen to Tuvalu’s elderly residents if those of working age migrate first.
Laafai fears her community will be scattered, just as she plans to settle down.
“Tuvalu is very caring,” she said. “Even if you don’t have much, you can share with relatives.”