Interviewees:
Lilly Teafa, Tuvaluan youth and climate advocate
Kato Ewekia Tuvaluan climate activist
Liam Saddington, political and environmental geographer at Cambridge University
Nikki Reisch, climate and energy program director at the Center for International Environmental Law in the US
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Transcript:
Kathleen: This is Living Planet
Simon Kofe: Your excellencies, honored guests, ladies and gentlemen: Talofa and warm Pacific greetings from Tuvalu.
It’s 2022, and Simon Kofe a politician from the South Pacific is addressing global leaders at a UN climate summit in Egypt.
Kofe: Today I speak again from my country…
Kofe’s speaking via video link from Tuvalu. Tuvalu’s a group of tiny islands between Australia and Hawaii.
He’s standing on one of its beaches, behind a lectern. Tuvalu’s flag to his left, the UN’s to his right.
Kofe: We have seen temperature rise projections remain well above 1C…
The camera slowly starts to zoom out towards the sea. Palm trees flutter in the wind behind him, pure white sand breaks into rocky shoreline.
But then, patches of stoney ground start to flicker and shift. The sea expands in abrupt rectangles of blue. Birds fly into a flat, black sky.
Kofe is in fact not on Tuvalu. He’s standing on its digital clone.
Kofe: As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world’s first digital nation.
If Tuvalu can’t exist in the real world, it will have to move into the metaverse.
Kofe: Our land, our ocean, our culture, are the most precious assets of our people - and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we’ll move them to the cloud.
Scientists predict within 30 years much of Tuvalu will be underwater during high tide. So Kofe says they have no choice but to relocate.
Kofe: Piece by piece we’ll preserve our country, provide solace to our people, and remind our children and grandchildren what our home once was.
Kofe, who was Tuvalu’s foreign minister at the time, is no stranger to theatrics. The year before he addressed the summit while knee-deep in sea water. But his proposal isn’t just a political gimmick.
Climate change is unfolding here in real time. A blisteringly unfair fate for a country that has contributed less than 0.01% of global emissions.
Kofe: If you were to about to lose everything, what is the one thing you would save? We’re asking that same question to the Tuvaluan people.
Since the video, the government has taken steps to bring Tuvalu’s digital twin to life.
It has laser scanned every corner of its territory to build a detailed, 3D digital map and amended its constitution so it can maintain statehood after land disappears.
It’s exploring the idea of digital passports stored on the blockchain that would allow Tuvaluans, dispersed around the world, to connect in the metaverse and take part in daily life, to vote, marry, register births and deaths.
It’s even moving cultural artefacts online, uploading stories passed down by grandparents, historical documents, videos of traditional dances and song, and of course, of people speaking Tuvaluan.
Kofe calls it a “digital ark.”
Kofe: A vessel built for crisis, designed to carry the very soul of Tuvalu, preserving the very essence of our nation for whatever future challenges we might encounter…
Tuvalu is the fourth smallest nation in the world. Less than 12,000 people live on an area around 3% the size of New York City. From above its skinny nine islands look fragile - like strands of hair in the vast ocean.
And if Tuvalu rings a bell, that’s probably no coincidence. It’s expected to be one of the first nations lost to climate change. Maybe you’ve even heard it referred to as the “sinking island.”
And this image, of a paradise-soon-to-be lost, has become almost symbolic of climate change itself.
But the sinking island narrative is only half the story. And some Tuvaluans say it’s not even the story of the island they want told.
For this episode we spoke to two young people who believe a home can’t be put in a suitcase or a computer file and just relocated somewhere else. Instead, they’re putting hope in other solutions to keep Tuvalu on the map.
I’m Kathleen Schuster.
Lilly Teafa: I'm an island girl if I don't see the sea in just three days, I would go mad… if I don't feel the sand, the sand in between my toes, I get sick. If I don't go swim in the sea, I'll be really moody.
That’s Lilly Teafa. She’s 29 and from Tuvalu. During the day, she works in communications for a family health association, and in her spare time, she works as a youth and climate advocate.
For her, life on Tuvalu is cycling to feed the pigs, hearing the church bells ring out across the island, and smelling fish smoking on a fire.
Lilly: It's mostly just you, the sun, the sea, a lot of bikes behind you and just children screaming out loud, playing marbles next to you. And having endless cousins.
Lilly says Tuvaluans’ deep-rooted connection with home starts at birth - when a child’s umbilical cord is cut in half.
Lilly: One would be buried in the Land. One would be given to the sea. It shows that you are a person of the land and of the sea.
This intimate bond with the island is exactly what another young Tuvaluan named Bernard Kato Ewekia has with his home.
Kato, as he prefers to be called, is a 28-year-old climate activist. As a kid, one of his favorite places on Tuvalu was a beach where he played rugby with friends.
Kato: There is the sea, there is sand. We can rough each other without getting hurt, because sand is soft. There's the sunset. It was a beautiful, beautiful memory I can ever imagine.
In his teens Kato’s family moved to Fiji. He remembers returning home after a few years and asking his friends if they wanted to play.
Kato: They were like, oh, but we can't go to that beach again. I was, like, confused, like, why? We just play rugby. Oh, they told me, like, my brother, that beach is gone.
Many islanders have their own version of this story: returning after travels to find homes, shores, landmarks of their lives, have been taken by the sea.
For Lilly the island holds thousands of years of memories and traditions. But like many young Tuvaluans, in her short lifetime she has seen climate change take its toll.
One day in particular had a big impact on her.
Lilly: Here in Tuvalu cemeteries are sacred, when there's a newly buried person, you need to be very respectful. You can't drive your bike or your car or even walk near the area where someone is buried…We have a belief that we do not want to disturb them sleeping.
In 2015 Cyclone Pam , a category 5 storm, battered the island and displaced almost half of the population. In its aftermath, Lilly found the storm had ripped through a cemetery, washing away graves.
LillyT1: It was really heartbreaking, because most of the families still go there. But then it's just sand. They just go there and try to remember their ancestors, their families who have gone. But then some of them said that most of the bodies were never recovered. The cemeteries were just gone. So, most of them had to pick up pieces of bones, not even knowing which one belonged to which.
There are reports of islanders now resorting to building tombs next to their homes.
Lilly: These are things that we don't really talk about because it's too hurtful to talk about, but then we have to talk about them so that the world would know what is really happening.
The terrifying impact of climate change also spurred Kato to become an activist. Speaking at COP a few years ago, he described witnessing Cyclone Tino in January 2020.
Kato: We were at home and the wind was so strong and our roof was about to rip off of our house and I was with my younger siblings and I was telling them don’t be scared because I am here I am the eldest, and I was thinking what future can I give to my siblings, and then I was thinking, what future can I give to my siblings. The reason why I came to COP26 is to save my people and my future.”
So why exactly is sea level rise hitting Tuvalu so fast?
Rising oceans are a global threat, with nearly 40% of the world’s population living near coastlines.
But countries like Tuvalu are among the most critically endangered.
That’s because Tuvalu is one of the most low-lying places in the world at around 2 meters above sea level. It has no higher ground, no mountains to run to as the sea closes in.
Global sea levels have risen faster since the start of the 20th century than at any point in the last 3,000 years.
The main driving force being the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere released when coal, oil and gas are burned.
This pattern is also heating up the world’s oceans. And when water warms, it grows in volume. On top of that, the rapid melting of ice sheets and mountain glaciers are releasing enormous amounts of water into our oceans.
What may come as a bit of a surprise too is that ocean dynamics and the Earth's unequal gravity field mean they rise more in certain parts of the world than others.
Around Tuvalu they’re rising at 1.5 times the global average. The sea around the island is now 15 centimeters higher than it was 30 years ago. That’s 6 inches, for our US listeners out there.
Now a few centimeters might not seem like much. But scientists estimate that every 2.5 cm of sea rise equates to 2.5 meters of lost beachfront and means that high tides and storm surges can reach even further. And remember, Tuvalu is only around 2m above sea level, which is why scientists predict most of the island will be underwater at high tide within less than 30 years.
Tuvalu’s problems also don’t end at the shoreline. Sea water is bubbling up through the porous coral land itself - like a hole in the bottom of a boat. The soil is so salty they can barely grow crops, and they rely entirely on rainwater because groundwater quality is so poor.
And as the planet continues to warm, extreme weather like the cyclones and drought that batter Tuvalu are growing more intense.
In comments online, Lilly has seen people ask – why don’t you just move to another country? It’s hard for her to read.
Lilly: I don’t want this to happen, but I think this is one of the main reasons that I do what I do. Just make sure that our people stay here, because these are where our roots are.
Lilly says sea level rise is pushing people to migrate, but she’s determined to stay.
Lilly: It’s either you stay there and drown, or you move to another place. We would rather fight for our land, even though it's just a little piece of land, but we still fight because it's our land and it's our home, and we like it there.
Over the coming decades climate change will force millions of people from their homes. Maybe even as many as 1 billion, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
In 2023, Tuvalu signed a migration pact with Australia that recognizes the threat of climate change and offers 280 Tuvaluans permanent residency each year.
Kato is currently in Australia with his wife while she studies. But his plan is to return home. And he says leaving a place because it is disappearing is very different from choosing to move.
It’s really hard for both Kato and Lilly to imagine how an identity can truly survive without the place itself – be it in a different country, or the metaverse. Kato says having his culture exist only online would break him.
Kato: I will not be able to live like I was just gonna cry and cry all day that the land of by the land of my ancestors has disappeared, all the things that has been taught to us would be all gone, but it will be in a cloud online. It’s like a fiction book to read.
Both Lilly and Kato get why that the government is preparing for the worst. But they say the digital twin feels a bit like giving up, and that the worst is unimaginable.
When Lilly heard about the project she cried.
Lilly: There are just some things in life that cannot exist in the metaverse.
But there is one thing that is giving them hope ...
One solution they have tried on Tuvalu are sea walls, but none have stood up against cyclones and the erosion from rising water.
So instead, Tuvalu is attempting to literally raise itself further above the ocean.
In 2017 it launched a land reclamation project. The Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project - TCAP for short - is building new land that would remain above sea levels beyond the end of the century and act as a buffer from storms.
The design involved scanning the shoreline, and then dredging sand from Tuvalu’s deeper surrounding waters, to fill large geotextile bags on the reclamation area.
Last year the project finished building along Tuvalu’s main island where the capital is located. The new land is 730m long,100m wide, and – importantly - 6m high, making it Tuvalu's highest and safest point.
Kato thinks it’s going to really help with sea level rise.
Kato: And you know what's nice about it, the beach that I used to play that disappeared? It's in that reclamation land, yeah, but the sad thing about it, we can't play because the government owns it now. But hey, I can tell my children that I played roughly there at the beach. I'm really excited to go back in and walk on that new land, and I haven't touched yet and walked on yet. But, yeah, I'm really, really, really excited.
This reassurance hasn’t come cheap. The new land cost nearly $40 million, with Tuvalu contributing just under $3 million and the Green Climate Fund, the world's largest climate fund, providing the rest.
But locals have been encouraged already by seeing the land put to the test. Back in February of 2024 Tuvalu had large king tides that crashed across the main island where the capital is located, cutting off roads. But the TCAP land remained untouched.
They plan to build hundreds of homes, government offices, sports facilities and a women’s center on the new land. The next phase of TCAP, which is being funded by Australia, New Zealand and the US, will reclaim an additional 800 meters of new, elevated land.
Liam Saddington: So it has now normalized land reclamation in the Pacific as a way of adapting to sea level rise and climate change.
That’s Liam Saddington, a political and environmental geographer at Cambridge University. He says land reclamation in Tuvalu is not only a landmark project, it also gives them important leverage in international climate negotiations.
Liam: So that when they are negotiating, and you know, the state on the other side of the table says, well, you're asking me to do this with decarbonizing or raising this amount of funding. What are you doing, Tuvalu? You can say, look at the sheer scale of what we are having to undertake to remain in situ.
The land reclamation project challenges this image of Tuvalu as just a sinking island.
For Kato, this is really important.
He remembers encountering the “sinking island” image on his first trip far away from home.
In was 2021 and he had just arrived in Glasgow for the UN climate summit. It was overwhelming. He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the Scottish winter, struggling with English.
Kato: They come up to me. Oh, you're from Tuvalu? Yeah I’m from Tuvalu. Oh, yeah, is that the sinking Island?
He would feel a twitch in his neck at the mention of it
Kato: Instead of you putting, you know, Tuvalu as a sinking island, how about you put us, you know, as a rising nation for the future. I mean, I'm fighting for my country not to disappear, but not for you to tell me that my country is disappearing.
Kato says the sinking island image denies Tuvaluans their agency and resilience and portrays them as passive victims instead. Some argue it even risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because if an island is destined to sink, why would donors invest in saving it?
Even though the land reclamation project and the digital twin might at first seem like conflicting approaches – they are both part of the government's climate strategy. Almost like a plan A and plan B, covering both potential futures.
And they’re both examples of Tuvalu taking its fate into its own hands. As one academic put it, even a dystopian future should be a Tuvaluan one.
But, how much power do Tuvaluans really have to save themselves?
In December 2024 Lilly left Tuvalu to head for another country struggling with sea level rise: the Netherlands.
Five flights later, she arrived in the Hague, feeling hopeful.
She was there for a landmark climate case at the world's highest court.
Over two weeks,100 countries and international organizations presented arguments at the International Court of Justice about who should bear legal responsibility for the continued rise in emissions.
As activists, climate summits like COP are one of the fronts Lilly and Kato are fighting on. But both have grown disillusioned with what they can achieve. Just weeks before Lilly arrived in the Netherlands, COP29 had concluded with a disappointing agreement on climate finance.
Lilly’s hope in the Hague soon turned to exasperation, when she saw the responses of wealthy, polluting nations.
Lilly: Instead of actually listening to the people they already came prepared and hid behind their excuses. So, it's already sad, because they actually wanted to travel that far to the Hague just to say excuses, more and more excuses. And instead of them listening to their hearts, they still listen to their pockets.
Big emitters like the US, China, and Australia, emphasized their existing obligations under the Paris Agreement, which commits nations to trying to limit global warming to 1.5C.
But Lilly, like many others in the Hague, argues the world needs to go beyond this. Emissions are at record highs, and the world is on track for over 3C warming.
Lilly knows that the fate of nations like Tuvalu is only partly in their own hands. It ultimately rests on just how much the seas keep rising. For her, saving the island requires emitters to stop using fossil fuels, switch to renewable energy and provide the money for countries on the frontline of the climate crisis – like Tuvalu – to deal with its impact.
Lilly: It was never our fault, and we have never exploited any of the fossil fuels. And yet, when climate change comes, when the climate crisis happens, we are the first ones to be affected by it.
Hopes are still high that the pending court ruling will clarify states' obligations under international law.
And some say it has already achieving something.
Nikki Reisch is the climate and energy program director at the Center for International Environmental Law in the US. She says the moving testimonies she heard in the courtroom showed how the fates of low-lying countries are far more intertwined with the rest of the world than many acknowledge.
Nikki Reisch: If we can't respond to that call and meet that challenge, then we are effectively saying that all is lost for the rest of the world, where there are even larger communities and numbers of people who will be facing irreversible tides of catastrophic harm.
Both Kato and Lilly worry they will be the break in a generation chain. The ones that must explain to younger people what the island was like and what made them Tuvaluan: How it smelt, how to fish in the dark or by reading the sky.
But as the pendulum swings between different possible futures for the island, Lilly and Kato feel there’s no option but to keep fighting for the best outcome.
For Lilly, home can never be in the metaverse. But she also feels the digital twin project does underline just how serious Tuvalu’s crisis is.
Lilly: It's also an eye opener for the polluters, for them to have a soft heart - or have a heart - and see that if they continue with what they are doing, they would practically be killing a whole population, a whole country.
Kato can now also see its use for a worst-case scenario.When it gets hard to stay optimistic, he says music helps. Last year at COP, he took his guitar and sang with his cousin, hoping to reach delegates in a different way.
Kato: When they put their feet in my shoes, they can feel and know and understand why I'm doing this work, not only for me, but also for my future generation to come. I don't want them to when, you know, Tuvalu disappears – if…if… you know, I don't want them to think like we did not do a good job. I want them to think like, you know, I did my best. I did my very best in these big conferences to advocate for Tuvalu so that my future generation can enjoy what I enjoyed when I was a young boy.
Kato hopes when he is buried one day it will be in Tuvalu’s soil.
Kato: When I'm old, I hope that when my children become 28 years old, I'll be teaching them and showing them where I used to play in Tuvalu, not telling them stories in another foreign country, how I felt in Tuvalu. I hope that when they grow up, they will know their father was, you know, a climate warrior trying to secure their future in Tuvalu.
This episode of Living Planet was produced by Holly Young. Editing and sound design by me, Kathleen Schuster. Our sound engineers were Jürgen Kuhn and Michael Springer.
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