Tuvalu, a small country in the Pacific Ocean made up of nine coral islands, is facing erasure from climate change.
According to a BBC report, as sea level rise is eating away at its shores, the government is taking drastic measures to preserve its land and culture — by creating a digital backup of everything from its houses to its trees as it endeavors to save whatever it can.
With the physical land sinking beneath the waves, Tuvalu is building a virtual replica, aiming to preserve not just the nation’s beauty, but also the legal rights of its 11,000 citizens for future generations.
Announced in 2022 by Foreign Minister Simon Kofe at COP27, the initiative is part of Tuvalu’s “Future Now” project, which blends diplomacy and climate adaptation. Kofe introduced the virtual replica in a striking video where a beach scene slowly glitches into a digital version of Te Afualiku, a small island expected to be the first to vanish due to rising seas, added the report.
In the clip, which looks more like a sequel to The Matrix than an official government speech, Kofe at first appears to stand on a beach, complete with white sand and rustling palms. But as the camera zooms out, revealing more of the scenery, the image starts to glitch. Rocks and sand shift unnaturally, and a seabird flies across the black abyss of the background.
This is not the real Tuvalu but the beginning of its digital twin: a virtual reconstruction of Te Afualiku, a low-lying islet that is expected to be Tuvalu’s first casualty of climate change.
“Our land, our ocean, our culture are the most precious assets of our people – and to keep them safe from harm, no matter what happens in the physical world, we’ll move them to the cloud,” the BBC quoted Kofe as saying in the video.
Apart from creating Tuvalu virtual landscape, the ‘Digital Nation’ project also aims to preserve the island nation’s cultural heritage.
According to the BBC report, citizens have been invited to submit personal memories, stories, and traditions for digitisation, creating an archive to carry the nation’s “soul,” as described by Foreign Minister Simon Kofe in 2023.
The project also addresses a practical need: preserving sovereignty as rising sea levels threaten Tuvalu’s physical territory. Current international law requires a defined landmass and permanent population for statehood, but Tuvalu’s future is uncertain.
To adapt, the government is creating digital passports on the blockchain, enabling functions like elections and civil registrations. Tuvalu hopes this digital model will redefine statehood for a warming, online world, added the report.
The initiative has garnered support from countries in similar predicaments but faces skepticism, including within Tuvalu’s own government.
Critics argue it mirrors the resource-intensive systems driving climate change, while others acknowledge that the project reflects the inevitable reality of displacement as life on the islands becomes increasingly untenable, added the report.
According to the BBC, citing a recent assessment by scientists at Nasa, much of Tuvalu’s land, including its critical infrastructure, will sit below the level of the current high tide by 2050.
Across all climate scenarios, the country will experience more than 100 days of flooding each year by the end of this century. Then there are the other impacts to reckon with, including saltwater intrusion, heatwaves and intensified cyclones, added the report.
Scientists have warned that exceeding a 1.5°C global temperature rise poses a severe threat to small island nations. For the first time, global temperatures surpassed this threshold over an entire year, from February 2023 to January 2024.
As developed nations struggle to reduce emissions quickly enough, Tuvalu’s digital twin offers a way for its diaspora to stay connected to their heritage and homeland, even as they lose both. This shift marks a move away from the Pacific Islands’ “we are not drowning, we are fighting” rhetoric.
Reality of relocation
In response to climate change, Tuvaluans are already facing the reality of relocation, with a 2023 treaty between Tuvalu and Australia allowing for the annual migration of 280 Tuvaluans. The agreement provides new visas for work, study, and eventual citizenship.
However, not everyone believes it’s time to abandon the islands just yet.
“The concept for the creation of a digital nation of Tuvalu in the metaverse implies that Tuvalu will disappear because of sea level rise and that we should make a digital copy of it,” BBC quoted former prime minister Enele Sopoaga, now the leader of the opposition, as saying in a 2023 media statement responding to the proposals.
“There is no basis of such proposition in international law, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that Tuvalu will disappear even with sea level rise,” Sopoaga added.
Speaking in September at a UN General Assembly plenary about the existential threats from sea-level rise, Tuvaluan climate activist Grace Malie told delegates that Tuvalu and other ocean states will “not go quietly into the rising sea” but will “continue the fight” for their land, culture and future.
“It’s more than just our homes at stake,” she was quoted as saying. “It’s our dignity, our culture, our heritage. It is not something we can pack into suitcases and take with us. We have done the least to cause the crisis, but we are paying the highest price,” she added.
While some Tuvaluans consider migrating to Australia, Tuvalu has intensified its efforts to push Australia to reduce fossil fuel extraction and exports.
At the same time, some argue that creating a digital twin of Tuvalu doesn’t signal abandonment of the islands. They believe efforts to physically protect the islands can go hand in hand with preserving its legacy in the metaverse.
“The Digital Nation programme does not represent an acceptance of the loss of the nation as a physical entity,” BBC quoted Taukiei Kitara, a Tuvaluan research fellow at Griffith University in Australia and co-author of a recent paper about the Digital Nation initiative, as saying.
He points out that the project is just one of many in Tuvalu’s fight against climate change and has the advantage of being driven by Tuvaluans themselves.
The government is investing millions in land reclamation through a coastal adaptation project. In the past two years, flood-free land has been added to Funafuti and Fogafale, creating space for housing, infrastructure, and essential services. On the outer islands of Nanumaga and Nanumea, new protective barriers are preventing tides from reaching homes, schools, hospitals, farmland, and other cultural sites.
“Planning for multiple scenarios – both best-case and worst-case and in between – is sensible when it comes to risk management, and this is the approach of Tuvalu’s current government, and indeed successive previous Tuvalu governments,” Kitara added.
‘Digital Nation plan impractical’
Some critics argue that the ‘Digital Nation’ plan is impractical for a country still relatively disconnected from the digital world, suggesting it’s more of a PR move aimed at attracting international attention and pressuring wealthier nations to cut emissions — critical for the survival of Tuvalu’s physical islands.
However, the effort the Tuvaluan government is putting into mapping its islands and improving connectivity suggests that this initiative is more than just a diplomatic tactic.
In the year following the COP27 announcement, Tuvalu completed a 3D scan of all its 124 islands and islets using Lidar (light detection and ranging) technology, an airborne laser scanning technique. The government is now building an undersea telecommunications cable to improve digital connectivity and support the plan.
In March and April 2024, the global non-profit Place began mapping Funafuti, Tuvalu’s capital, using drones and 360-degree cameras to capture both aerial and street-level imagery. This high-resolution data will create a detailed digital representation of the islands, where satellite imagery alone lacks the accuracy needed for finer details.
“We drove all of the island, then we switched to mopeds for the bike paths, and then we switched to tiny GoPros for all of the walking paths,” BBC quoted Frank Pichel, field operations lead at Place, as saying. “I think we have covered about 80 or 90 km (50 or 56 miles), and really covered as much as we could.”
With inputs from agencies