In these small, isolated island communities, many with only a few thousand residents, there are few resources available to combat the existential threat posed by rising sea levels. Left alone, there is very little they can do.
Children on the island of Tuvalu in the Pacific Ocean play in a coastal area protected by sandbags.
“A lot of times people say, ‘you’re talking about a thousand people, you’re talking about six thousand people.’ But for us, those 6,000 people are on the front lines of this climate crisis, and we owe them everything to safeguard their livelihoods and not disrupt their daily lives,” said Tuya Altangerel, a senior official with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in the Pacific. UN News.
The Government, with the support of UNDP, is intensifying its efforts to save Tuvalu by protecting the country’s most populated islands.
Small increases, devastating consequences
Sea level rise is primarily due to global warming, which causes water to expand as it warms and accelerates the melting of ice sheets and glaciers on land.
Workers prepare for coastal protection works at Funafuti Atoll, Tuvalu.
Few places are experiencing it as quickly as the Pacific Ocean, where factors like ocean currents and winds combine with global warming to create a “piling” effect on some of the most vulnerable low-lying islands.
In the independent island nation of Tuvalu, the level has risen 21 centimeters in 30 years, almost double the global average. At the current rateSome projections suggest that 95 percent of the country could be underwater by 2100.
Why high tides are the real danger
The biggest daily challenge for island communities is the increase in the number and intensity of high tides.
“Our islands are drowning,” Altangerel said.
With the country sitting on average below two meters above sea level, traditional coastal protection methods – whether building dikes or nature-based methods such as mangrove planting – “no longer work” to control these tides, he said.
“If we plant mangroves, the mangroves will simply be swallowed by the sea… The king tide will simply pass over the mangroves, or it may pass over the dikes,” he said.
It is not only the disappearance of the coastal areas, but also the feeling of nationality of the people and also the future existence of these countries are highly threatened.
– Yours Altangerel
Migration, a solution?
While adaptation projects are underway, migration is also an option. In 2023, the governments of Tuvalu and Australia launched the Falepili Union, a treaty that allows 280 Tuvaluans to move to Australia each year to obtain residency or citizenship.
Last year, 90 percent of the country’s population applied for the first round of visa voting.
In Kiribati and Vanuatu there are other arrangements that allow working citizens to obtain visas in Australia. Meanwhile, New Zealand offers 75 residency visas per year to Kiribati and Vanuatu, and the United States has an agreement with the Marshall Islands where citizens can live, work and study in the United States without a visa.
In this context, there are concerns about the implications for the culture and heritage of Pacific peoples, especially those with traditional livelihoods, if populations move away en masse.
Can a nation survive without land?
With sea levels rising, some island nations may physically disappear.
“It is not only about the disappearance of the coastal areas, but also the feeling of nationhood of the people and also the future existence of these countries are very threatened,” said Altangerel.
A boy walks through a town square a month after a cyclone caused widespread flooding. (archive)
A 2025 ruling by the International Court of Justice clarified that the loss of its physical territory due to sea level rise does not No would automatically result in the loss of its statehood or sovereignty, allowing Tuvalu to remain a nation state with rights to its ocean resources and a seat at the UN, even if its islands are underwater.
A staff in Tuvalu
In Tuvalu, UNDP, in collaboration with the Government and the Green Climate Fund, initiated a novel adaptation plan in 2017 based on detailed sensor mapping to create more than seven hectares of new land designed to remain above projected sea level beyond 2100.
He Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project dredges sand to create upland that is protected from storm surges on the islands of Funafuti, Nanumea and Nanumaga.
Before (top) and during (bottom) land reclamation work under the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project.
“These are very drastic measures,” warns Altangerel, whose project has so far cost about $55 million: “We basically rebuilt the land around the atolls so that there is safe land where people can build shelters and homes.”
The second phase began in 2024, where eight more hectares will be added along the southern coast of the country’s capital, Funafuti, on the island of Fongafale, where 60 percent of the country’s population lives. Many Tuvaluans from less protected atolls have already migrated there in search of protection.
Another way the Government and UNDP are supporting Tuvaluans to stay is by providing an insurance plan when flooding occurs due to high tides, and an initial 400 households in Funafuti will receive automatic payments of up to $1,500 per high tide event.
For Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands – three of the four lowest countries in the world – the measures taken in Tuvalu can offer a model for their future adaptation and survival.
“If we can safeguard Tuvalu as a nation… we will be helping all this wonderful work be scaled up and replicated throughout the Pacific, but also in other small island developing States,” Ms Altangerel said.
Saving the Pacific
Visiting the Pacific islands, which stretch thousands of kilometers apart in the world’s largest ocean seven years ago, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “if we save the Pacific, we save the world.”
As the world celebrates Earth Day on April 22 in Tuvalu, the effort is not just about adaptation, but also about survival and the question of whether a nation can preserve its land, its identity and its future as the seas rise.