Australia offers to help Tuvalu residents escape rising seas and other ravages of climate change

By NICK PERRY
Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Australia is offering the island nation of Tuvalu a lifeline to help residents escape the rising seas and increased storms that climate change is bringing. At a meeting of Pacific leaders Friday in the Cook Islands, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced a plan that will initially allow up to 280 Tuvaluans to come to Australia each year. Tuvalu has a population of 11,000, and its low-lying atolls make it particularly vulnerable to global warming. NASA’s Sea Level Change Team has assessed that much of Tuvalu’s land and critical infrastructure would sit below the level of the current high tide by 2050. Albanese said the new bilateral partnership between the two countries comes at the request of Tuvalu.