Tuvalu residents prepare for world’s first planned migration of an entire nation — and climate change is to blame

More than 5,000 people have applied for a first-of-its-kind migration visa that offers residents of a Pacific island an escape from the worst effects of climate change.

Applications for the visa opened to people in Tuvalu on June 16 and close today (July 18). Under its terms, 280 Tuvaluans can relocate to Australia each year from 2025 through a ballot system. Four days after the ballot opened, 3,125 Tuvaluans — roughly one-third of the nation's population of 11,000 people — had already registered for a chance to receive the visa. As of July 11, a total of 5,157 people had applied, Nikkei Asia reported.

"This is the first agreement of its kind anywhere in the world, providing a pathway for mobility with dignity as climate impacts worsen," Australian government representatives told New Scientist in a statement.

The representatives said that they recognized the "devastating impact climate change is having on the livelihoods, security and well-being of climate-vulnerable countries and people, particularly in the Pacific region."

Tuvalu sits midway between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific Ocean. The country consists of nine low-lying atolls — ring-shaped islands surrounded by coral reefs. Tuvalu's highest point is 15 feet (4.5 meters) above sea level, but the country's mean elevation is just 6 feet (2 m) above sea level, making it extremely vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding and storm surges due to climate change.

In 2023, sea levels around Tuvalu were 6 inches (15 centimeters) higher than they were 30 years prior, a study found. Much of the country's land and critical infrastructure will be below high-tide level by 2050, the results indicated.

Related: Global sea levels rose a whopping 125 feet after the last ice age

Sea level rise also threatens water supplies, as seawater can infiltrate into freshwater aquifers. This occurs because seawater is pushing farther inland, increasingly flowing into aquifers both horizontally and vertically. Residents of Tuvalu are already having to raise their crops off the ground to keep salinity at bay, Bateteba Aselu, a Tuvaluan doctoral student of climate change at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told New Scientist.

The new visa scheme, officially called the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty, was signed in late 2023 and came into force in 2024. It is the world's first planned migration of an entire nation, giving residents of Tuvalu the right to live, work and study in Australia with the same access to health benefits and education as Australian citizens. Recipients of the visa also are not obliged to move, and they can return home as often as they like.

"This is potentially a precedent, a global first where a migration pathway is explicitly tied to climate change and sea level rise," Wesley Morgan, a research associate at the University of New South Wales' Institute for Climate Risk and Response, told New Scientist.

Australia might make similar arrangements with other Pacific island nations such as Kiribati in the future, Morgan said.

The outcomes of this year's ballot are expected by the end of July, and the first migrants could arrive in Australia by the end of 2025. The annual cap of 280 people aims to prevent a massive brain drain and economic difficulties in Tuvalu, Reuters reported — and it could change in the coming years if any issues arise.

Combined with other emigrations from Tuvalu, the new visa means that almost 4% of the country's population could leave each year, Jane McAdam, a professor of law at the University of New South Wales in Australia wrote in The Conversation. If the numbers remain roughly the same in the long-term and people don't return home, close to 40% of Tuvalu's residents will have left in 10 years' time, she wrote.