The people of Tuvalu face a bleak and uncertain future through no fault of their own. The small island nation is an insignificant contributor to the green house gas emissions that is heating up the planet and changing up the climate.
The island nation has already started to feel the adverse effects of climate change. The whole of the nation is at risk of losing its identity and most importantly their "home".
Sea level rise, salt water intrusion into groundwater, increase in coastal erosion, increase in tropical cyclones and most importantly severe droughts is the evidence that climate change is happening and very rapidly.
Drought is the most recent problem in Tuvalu. The weather forecast since November has just been sunshine not even light showers. This is one of the impacts of climate change.
Some few years back people did not want to accept that climate change was happening even some did not expect that climate change would one day become a major and catastrophic problem.
Little did they know that the only way out of this dilemma would be to relocate.
We don’t want to leave this place. We don’t want to leave, it’s our land, our God given land, it is our culture, we can’t leave. People won’t leave until the very last minute.
These are the very words of one of the Tuvaluan's who is in great dilemma. They do not want to live their island nation. It is they origin, home of ancestors and their culture.
The Tuvaluan's will become the world's first refugees of climate change. New Zealand has agreed to accept the refugees but under very unsympathetic conditions.
But although New Zealand has agreed to a 30-year immigration program, taking 75 Tuvaluans per year, not every Tuvaluan threatened by sea level rise is allowed to participate. The applicant must be of good character and health, have basic English skills, have a job offer in New Zealand, and be under 45 years of age.
So the question to be posed here is :What about the old ones? How will they survive? Where will they go? Every individual has in some way contributed towards climate change. So this is for everyone of us to think about.
I was recently chatting with my neighbors (who happen to be Tuvaluan by the way!) and they were telling us about how their relatives back home were trying to survive especially among these hard times. The La Nina has had a great impact, and they fear that despite all the international help they are getting through desalination plants, and bottled water, they would still have to leave their beloved country, and move to other places. Their is indeed the view that if they leave behind their country, they would lose their identity. It is truly sad they have to go through this. Why do they have to suffer? Was climate change their fault? As far as I know, global warming is caused by burning of CFC products by the big, developed countries. Why are they not doing anything to help the people of Tuvalu out of this sad situation. This is a well-written article and it is quite relevant to the country's current condition. I hope things do get better for them soon!
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's sad thinking about what the people of that country are facing.As a Tuvaluan myself, i would say what my other country fellows have said,i don't want to leave Tuvalu, it has been my mother for a long time, she looks after me and watch me grow. There is no place that i would want my children to grow up in except for Tuvalu. But eventually we have to think about moving away because we don't want to watch our children suffer from the impacts of climate change. Who is to blame? this is a very crucial question to ponder? The whole world is to blame but mostly the big industrialized countries with their biggest gas emitters which have caused Global warming and climate change. Why don't we propose to these countries to use up their money to rebuild my homecountry so that we can be raised high above sea level then we don't have to think about sinking, only droughts and others in which there are options to explore to solve those problems.I am grateful though that Australia is planning to take in environmental refugees from the small island nations when worse comes to worse.
ReplyDeleteIt's good someone who is not a Tuvaluan will care as much to put up a blog about the plight of the Tuvaluans.
It is quite sad to see that our brothers and sisters of Tuvalu are facing tough times. Whether they like it or not, climate change is happening and unfortunately, the hope of reversing the “spell” of mans greed is hopeless. Luckily, developed countries like New Zealand have taken the initiative to take in 75 Tuvaluans per year. However, the downside to New Zealand’s offer as you had mentioned some how portrays how big countries and their “sympathetic” ways are just another way of sucking skill full people out of the smaller Pacific islands. Where do they expect the rest of the population who are old and elderly to go? Out of all developed nations, our own sister country (New Zealand) in the Pacific, seems to be cracking the whip on the Tuvaluan people. Well, hopefully, they remember that they are also one of the many contributors to Climate change and they must ease their conditions to the programme.
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