Facing erasure due to climate change, the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is digitally backing up everything from its houses to its trees as it endeav

Tuvalu: The disappearing island nation recreating itself in the metaverse

submited by

Style Pass

2024-11-21 22:30:17

Facing erasure due to climate change, the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu is digitally backing up everything from its houses to its trees as it endeavors to save whatever it can.

Tuvalu, a small country in the Pacific Ocean made up of nine coral islands, is reckoning with a future where it may no longer be habitable. Sea level rise, caused by climate change, is eating away at its shores.

Faced with such an existential threat, what do you do? Build sea walls? Try to reclaim some land from the sea? Move away altogether? These are all solutions that have been attempted by other small island nations facing similar problems, and indeed by the Tuvaluans themselves.

But Tuvalu is going one step further in its attempt to preserve its land and statehood. As the physical reality of the nation slips beneath the ocean, the government is building a digital copy of the country, backing up everything from its houses to its beaches to its trees. It hopes this virtual replica will preserve the nation's beauty and culture – as well as the legal rights of its 11,000 citizens – for generations to come.

The initiative was first announced in 2022 by Tuvalu's minister for foreign affairs, Simon Kofe, via a video speech played at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, as part of the government's wider Future Now (or Te Ataeao Nei in Tuvaluan) project, which is focusing on both international diplomacy and pragmatic adaptation to climate change.