International environmental responsibility.

If a consensus is reached by international organizations such as the IPCC and the UN, over the intermingling of human induced climate change and the disappearance of Tuvalu, the impact on global environmental politics will be unprecedented. In that case countries that are not compliant with environmental protection protocols, would have to take the lead in funding and implementing solutions to alleviate their negative impact on the environment and therefore provide vulnerable countries such as Tuvalu the help they need from the international community.

Local development to face climate change.

The challenge for the Tuvaluans is two folded, as they must combine adaptation to climate change with local development planning in order to better their home environment. It has been said that Tuvalu has become “a site for competing views not only on what the effects of climate change might be, but also on how to respond to them” and it struck us that local issues such as clean water access, proper sanitation and overcrowding could be dealt simultaneously with contingency planning due to climate change (seawall, food safety).

 Resilience vs. Resettlement.

Tuvalu faces climate-induced displacement of its population and it could be on an even greater scale in years to come. In fact the whole population may have to be relocated thus posing great threats to the Tuvaluan people unity and the Tuvaluan government sovereignty. For now, the government has favoured “adaptation” solutions over migration to preserve the Tuvaluan way of life and to have more options on how to overcome land and property right issues for the future in case the Tuvaluans were to be relocated in neighbouring countries such as New Zealand or Fiji. Nonetheless many Tuvaluans have already planned their resettlement in case the most severe events come to pass.