More than 5,000 people have requested a migration visa of the first of its kind that offers residents of a Pacific island an escape from the worst effects of Climate change.
Applications for the visa opened to people in Tuvalu on June 16 and close today (July 18). According to its terms, 280 Tuvaluans can move to Australia every year since 2025 through a voting system. Four days After the ballot opened, 3,125 Tuvaluanos, approximately one third of the population of 11,000 people from the Nation, had already registered to receive the opportunity to receive the visa. As of July 11, a total of 5,157 people had requested, Nikkei Asia reported.
“This is the first agreement of this type anywhere in the world, providing a path for mobility with dignity as the climatic impacts worsen”, the representatives of the Australian government He told New Scientist In a statement.
The representatives said they recognized the “devastating impact that climate change is having in the livelihoods, the security and well -being of countries and climatic peopleparticularly in the Pacific region. “
Tuvalu is halfway between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific Ocean. The country consists of nine low atolls: ring -shaped islands surrounded by coral reefs. The highest point in Tuvalu is 15 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level, but the country’s average elevation is only 6 feet (2 m) above sea levelmaking it extremely vulnerable to the increase in sea level, floods and dizzy storms due to climate change.
In 2023, sea levels around Tuvalu were 6 inches (15 centimeters) higher than were 30 years before, A study found. Much of the land and the country’s critical infrastructure will be below the high tide level by 2050, the results indicated.
Related: The world levels of the sea rose 125 feet after the last ice age
The increase in sea level also threatens water supplies, since seawater can infiltrate fresh water aquifers. This occurs because seawater is pushing more into the interior, which flows more and more towards both horizontal and vertically. Tuvalu residents already have to lift soil crops to keep salinity at bay, Bateteba aseluHe told New Scientist, a doctoral student of Climate Change from Tuvaluan at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The new visa scheme, officially called the Treaty of the Union of Falepili of Australia-Tuvalu, was signed at the end of 2023 and entered into force in 2024. It is the first migration of the planned world of an entire nation, giving the residents of Tuvalu the right to live, work and study in Australia with the same access to the health benefits and education as the Australian citizens. Visa recipients are not obliged to move either, and they can return home as often as they want.
“This is potentially a precedent, a first global where a migration route is explicitly linked to climate change and the increase in sea level.” Wesley MorganAn associate of research at the Institute of Risk and Climate Response of the University of Nueva Gales del Sur, told New Scientist.
Australia could make similar arrangements with Other Nations of Pacific Island As Kiribati in the future, said Morgan.
This year’s vote results are expected at the end of July, and the first migrants could reach Australia at the end of 2025. The annual limit of 280 people aims to avoid a massive escape of mass brains and economic difficulties in Tuvalu, Reuters reported – And I could change in the coming years if problems arise.
Combined with other emigrations in Tuvalu, the new visa means that almost 4% of the country’s population could leave every year, Jane McadamLaw professor at the University of Nueva Wales del Sur in Australia wrote in The conversation. If the numbers are still approximately the same in the long term and people do not return home, about 40% of Tuvalu residents will have gone in 10 years, he wrote.
#Tuvalu #residents #prepare #planned #migration #world #entire #nation #climate #change #blame
