More than 5,000 people have applied for their first attribute transition visa to help Pacific Island residents escape the worst effects of climate change.
Applications for Visa were opened to Tuvalu people on June 16th and ended today (July 18th). Under these conditions, 280 Tuvaluans can move to Australia annually through the voting system. Four days after the vote was held, 3,125 Tubals (about a third of the population of the nation) had already registered opportunities to receive visas. As of July 11, a total of 5,157 people had applied, Nikkei Asia reported.
“This is the first agreement of that kind anywhere in the world, providing a pathway for mobility with dignity as the climate deteriorates,” an Australian government representative told New Scientists in a statement.
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The representative said he is aware of “the catastrophic impacts of climate change, particularly the livelihood, safety and well-being of countries and people in the Pacific region.”
Tubal is located halfway between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific. The country is comprised of nine lowland atolls, ring-shaped islands surrounded by coral reefs. Thubal’s highest point is 15 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level, but the country’s average elevation is only 6 feet (2 meters) above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding and storm surges caused by climate change.
In 2023, the sea level around Tubal was 6 inches (15 cm) higher than 30 years ago, research found. Much of the country’s land and critical infrastructure will fall below high enrollment levels by 2050, the results show.
Related: World sea levels rose by a whopping 125 feet after the last ice age
Sea level rise also threatens water supply, as seawater can penetrate freshwater aquifers. This occurs because seawater pushes far inland and flows into the aquifer both horizontally and vertically. Tubal residents told a new scientist that they already have to grow crops from the ground to keep the salt content of Battebaacel, a doctoral student in climate change at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The new visa scheme, officially known as the Australia-Tubal Farapili Union Treaty, was signed in late 2023 and came into effect in 2024. This was the first planned migration in the world across the nation, giving Tubal residents the right to live, work and study in Australia with the same access and the same access as Australian citizens. Visa recipients are also not obligated to travel, and can return as much as they please.
“This is potentially a precedent and the first global movement pathways explicitly tied to climate change and sea level rise,” Wesley Morgan, a researcher at the Institute for Climate Risk and Response at the University of New South Wales, told New Scientists.
Australia may make similar arrangements in the future with other Pacific Island countries such as Kiliberty, Morgan said.
The results of this year’s vote are expected by the end of July, with first immigrants likely to arrive in Australia by the end of 2025. The 280-person annual CAP aims to prevent massive brain drainage and economic difficulties in Tubal.
In combination with other migrations from Tuvalu, the new visa means that almost 4% of the country’s population can leave each year, Jane McAdam, a law professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, writes in the conversation. If the numbers remain roughly the same for the long term and people do not return home, nearly 40% of Tubal residents will leave in 10 years, she writes.
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