Latest news with #GlobalCentreforClimateMobility
Euronews
27-06-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Over a third of Tuvaluans seek pioneering climate visa to Australia
More than a third of people from the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu are seeking to move to Australia through an unprecedented climate visa scheme that opened last week. Signed by the two countries in 2023, the Falepili Union provides a pathway for Tuvaluans to live, work and study in their larger neighbour, as sea-level rise threatens to engulf their home. A ballot for visas that opened on 16 June has already seen 1,124 primary registrations as of this morning (27 June), according to Australia's Department of Home Affairs. That rises to a total of 4,052 people when family members of the primary applicant are included. That's well above the 280 limit Australia is offering each year, and represents a sizeable proportion of Tuvalu's roughly 11,000-strong population. 'It is not surprising that the response is so high,' says James Ellmoor, CEO of Island Innovation, a consultancy focused on sustainable development for small island states. 'I think it is worth noting that there is a limited set of visas available every year, which will limit a major migration event.' The high number of applicants is likely pushed by two factors: the economy and climate change, he adds. Why are people looking to leave Tuvalu? A tiny constellation between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific, Tuvalu comprises nine palm-fringed reef islands and coral atolls. Two of its coral atolls have already almost disappeared beneath the waves, as human-caused climate change melts frozen parts of the world and heats the ocean, causing it to expand and rise. "In Tuvalu, the bond between people, land, and culture is unbreakable. For its people, home is not just where they live - it is who they are. Leaving is not what they want,' says Kamal Amakrane, managing director of the Global Centre for Climate Mobility (GCCM). 'Yet climate change is rewriting the future.' Much of Tuvalu's land area could fall beneath high tide by 2050, a NASA report from 2023 predicts. And it's not just sea-level rise that threatens this beautiful nation; climate change is also increasing the frequency and severity of storms, bleaching the corals on which its fisheries depend, and pushing saltwater into freshwater sources. 'From a climate standpoint, the Falepili Mobility Pathway represents a failure in international climate efforts. We are actively failing Tuvalu, we are actively failing island communities,' says Ellmoor. 'The Pathway, while an impressive show of bilateral policymaking and international solidarity, is a deeply saddening reality. We are talking about an entire sovereign nation and its citizens at risk of losing their physical communities and cultural heritage, through no fault of their own.' A groundbreaking climate mobility pact In Tuvaluan, 'Falepili' refers to close neighbours. When the pact was announced in November 2023, Australia was praised for the respectful terms of its neighbourliness. 'Response must be anchored in foresight and respect, ensuring that climate mobility is rooted in safety, dignity, and human rights,' says Amakrane. 'The Tuvalu–Australia Falepili Union Treaty offers a hopeful model - a promise of partnership, grounded in trust and shared responsibility.' While providing a 'special human mobility pathway', the deal recognises 'the desire of Tuvalu's people to continue to live in their territory where possible and Tuvalu's deep, ancestral connections to land and sea.' It enjoins Australia to help protect Tuvaluans' right to stay, and to support them to adapt to climate change, noting that tech opportunities are progressing. 'I like to think of it as a bridge, to connect the opportunities that we Tuvaluans aren't able to get,' Kalita 'Titi' Homasi, a Tuvaluan youth representative at COP27 told us. 'Australia is a bridge and even if people choose to go, I feel like they will always have the need to return.' Another part of the pact, which came into force last August, obliges Tuvalu to mutually agree with Australia on any involvement with another state on security and defence matters - widely seen as a measure to block China's influence in the region. What does it mean for Tuvalu? After the inaugural ballot closes on 18 July, a random selection process will take place between 25 July and 25 January, Australia's Home Affairs office explains. Ballot registrants who are selected to apply for the 'Pacific Engagement (subclass 192) – Treaty stream' visa will then be eligible to make an application. As well as being able to live, study and work in Australia, successful applicants will have access to Australian education, health, and key income and family support on arrival. Tuvalu has the world's smallest economy - with its GDP sitting at $63 million (€58mn) in 2023 according to the World Bank - largely founded on fisheries and international grants. Youth unemployment is high, Ellmoor notes, with few opportunities for job creation, and currently many sectors are threatened by the climate crisis. 'The Falepili Mobility Pathway provides an opportunity for Tuvaluans to work and reinvest back into the country through remittances. In Pacific nations, remittances can represent 15-40 per cent of GDP - for Tuvalu's economy, even modest increases become transformational,' he says. Paired with ambitious climate adaptation policies, the remittances could pave the way for a more sustainable economic future. But the existential challenge to Tuvalu and other low-lying island nations remains. 'With COP30 just around the corner, this needs to be a wake-up call for governments,' says Ellmoor. 'What do we have to show for three decades of negotiations? 'The first example of internationally-sanctioned climate migration from a small island developing state to a larger regional power which has built its economy on extractive activities, a country which shows little signs of ambition or interest in ensuring this does not continue to happen despite bidding to host COP31 which it intends to label as the 'Pacific COP'.'
Euronews
15-05-2025
- Climate
- Euronews
Extreme weather behind 99.5% of disaster displacements last year
Cyclones, floods and other disasters forced people from their homes 45.8 million times last year, official figures show, nearly double the annual average over the past decade. Virtually all of these internal 'disaster displacements' were due to extreme weather events, which are being turbocharged by climate change. That's according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC)'s latest global report, which also found that the number of people living in internal displacement at the end of 2024 exceeded 80 million for the first time. In total, 83.4 million people were forced to move within their own country due to conflict and violence, as well as increasing disasters. That's equivalent to the population of Germany, and more than twice as many as only six years ago. 'Internal displacement is where conflict, poverty and climate collide, hitting the most vulnerable the hardest,' says Alexandra Bilak, IDMC director. Sarah Rosengaertner, deputy managing director at the Global Centre for Climate Mobility (GCCM), described the latest figures as 'sad but not surprising.' 'It dovetails with the news that the world has reached, if not surpassed, the threshold of 1.5°C of average global warming,' she tells Euronews Green. 'Unfortunately, we can expect that rising temperatures will mean more disasters and further increases in disaster-related displacement in the coming years and decades.' IDMC, part of the Norwegian Refugee Council, counts each time a person is forced to move as an internal displacement. So the 45.8 million disaster displacement figure - the highest since its records began in 2008 - refers to evacuations, not individuals. The number of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) on 31 December is a separate statistic, capturing a snapshot in time in each country. Of last year's 83.4 million total, 9.8 million people were displaced by disasters; a 29 per cent increase on 2023 and more than double the number from just five years ago. Weather-related events - many intensified by climate change - were responsible for 99.5 per cent of disaster displacements during the year, IDMC's Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) reveals. Cyclones - such as hurricanes Helene and Milton that hit the US, and typhoon Yagi that struck numerous countries in East Asia - triggered 54 per cent of movements tied to disasters in 2024. Floods prompted another 42 per cent, with major events on every continent: from Chad to Brazil, Afghanistan to the Philippines and across Europe. Many disaster displacements were pre-emptive evacuations that saved lives in the US, the Philippines, Bangladesh and elsewhere. IDMC says this shows that displacement can be a positive coping mechanism in disaster-prone countries. The 11 million disaster displacements in the US were the most ever recorded for a single country, it notes. Although climate-fuelled disasters are getting worse, 90 per cent of people internally displaced by the end of 2024 (73.5 million) had fled conflict and violence. In Sudan, the devastating civil war led to 11.6 million IDPs - the most ever for one country. Nearly the entire population of Gaza remained displaced at the end of the year - with some forced to flee from Israel's bombardment up to 10 times or more. The number of countries reporting both conflict and disaster displacement has tripled since 2009. More than three-quarters of people internally displaced by conflict and violence by the close of 2024 were living in countries with high or very high vulnerability to climate change, according to analysis of data from IDMC and the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative. 'Climate change increases the risk of being displaced and amplifies the vulnerabilities of displaced people, especially in places already affected by conflict and violence. When disasters strike in conflict settings, the risks multiply,' explains Vicente Anzellini, IDMC global and regional analysis manager. 'This convergence makes crises more complex, prolongs displacement, and sets back efforts to find durable solutions. Ignoring these overlapping risks puts people at risk of long-term displacement.' Resolving disaster displacement requires both immediate responses and long-term planning, Anzellini tells Euronews Green. People need humanitarian aid, but also investment in climate adaptation and mitigation - without which the number of displaced people will continue rising. 'There is not a single solution,' says Rosengaertner. 'We need an alliance of political leaders, technocrats, entrepreneurs and community leaders to advance a combination of actions that both protect people's right to stay and enable movement in dignity.' First and foremost, this means cutting greenhouse gas emissions that are fuelling extreme weather events. The GCCM, which is backed by UN agencies, highlights four other steps: Urban areas will often be at the forefront of responding to displaced persons' needs, Rosengaertner adds, and so must be prepared to provide safety and opportunity. Internal displacement 'uproots lives', in Anzellini's words. It is a clear form of 'loss and damage' - a new category of climate finance which countries agreed to deliver at the UN climate summit in 2022. But, he says, 'while progress and commitments have been made, current funding is far below what is needed and often fails to account for the true costs of displacement.' The increasing recognition that more funding should be allocated for adaptation and loss and damage does not mean that the necessary funds are being made available, says Rosengaertner. Or that they come in the form that recipient countries deem fair. 'Displacement risk and displaced populations are not necessarily at the top of priorities (yet) when governments seek funding for adaptation and L&D,' she adds. Priorities are likely to get more competitive, as wealthy countries have been cutting their humanitarian aid budgets recently. As well as directly impacting displaced people, 'these cuts also affect a lot of the data sources and systems that we rely on to monitor and understand internal displacement,' explains Anzellini. It's too early to tell the full extent of these impacts, though, and lack of data will inevitably make it harder for organisations to plan responses. 'Cuts to humanitarian and development aid are already costing lives and will make many communities more vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather and disasters,' Rosengaertner warns. 'At a time when many people are looking for order, these cuts are a recipe for further destabilising already vulnerable populations and societies.' However, she says, there could be space for 'rethinking' development aid and climate finance. If rich countries were to compensate for the cuts by improving conditions for trade and labour mobility, for example, or engaging in technology transfer, 'maybe the net outcome of aid cuts could be positive.' 'What is critical,' she concludes, 'is that more resources reach countries and communities in need and create skills, opportunities and climate resilience locally.'
