World first climate visas: An answer to safe and dignified climate migration?

In brief:

One third of the citizens of Tuvalu (a small Pacific Island nation) have applied for an Australian climate visa, offering refuge from rising sea levels and extreme storms threatening the security of their homeland.
Schemes like the Tuvalu-Australia climate visa might provide an answer to safe and dignified climate migration, facilitating the voluntary movement of people prior to forced displacement caused by climate change-induced natural disaster or loss of essential resources.
Challenges still remain, including ultimately whether these types of scheme distract from the bigger picture: that countries in the Global North must do more to mitigate the root causes of climate change.
Our policy work in this area calls for a single recognised legal definition for climate displaced people to enable their protection under global policy. Our continued work via the Climate Migration Project strives to facilitate stakeholder discussion to find new ways to combat the challenges of climate migration.

What's happened?

Tuvalu is a Polynesian island nation located in the west-central Pacific Ocean consisting of an archipelago of nine low-lying coral atolls and islands. It is one of the world's most vulnerable countries to climate change. Rising sea levels and its vulnerability to severe weather events, such as cyclones and storms, threaten the very physical existence of the country. Scientists at Nasa predict that by 2050 most of Tuvalu's infrastructure will be underwater.

Attitudes and beliefs towards climate change vary across the globe. While less than half of Americans believe that global warming will pose them a serious threat in their own lifetime, 90% of Pacific Island nations think that climate change is a serious threat to peace and stability. Tuvalu has long been a leader in the global policy debate on how best to address the inevitable displacement of people as climate change renders their homes uninhabitable.

One third of Tuvalu's population has now applied for a world-first Australian "climate visa". Applications are made ballot style and only 280 applications will be successful per year. If secured, the visas go far beyond other migration programs in the Pacific, which have previously established temporary labour pathways. They will allow Tuvalu citizens to live, work, study and access health and education benefits in Australia, on a par with Australian citizens.

Applications for the first wave of visas opened on 16 June and close on 18 July. As of 27 June, 1,124 applications relating to 4,052 Tuvalu citizens are reported to have been submitted.

This arrangement came out of the Falepili Union, an agreement between the two nations which came into force in 2024, in which:

Australia recognised Tuvalu's continuing statehood and sovereignty, notwithstanding the impacts of sea-level rises;
Australia committed to assisting Tuvalu against natural disasters, public health emergencies or military aggression;
Australia committed to creating a migrant pathway to allow Tuvalu citizens to move to Australia to live, work and study;
Tuvalu committed to ensuring its immigration and border controls are sufficiently robust;
Tuvalu committed to mutually agreeing with Australia any partnership, arrangement or engagement with any other State or entity on security and defence-related matters in Tuvalu.

An answer to safe and dignified climate migration?

We have previously examined the worrying lack of engagement from policy makers on issues of climate migration. The impacts of climate change are well reported including, in the most severe cases, forcing people and whole communities to abandon homes, including ancestral lands. Our policy work in this area has emphasised the challenge of dealing with this circumstance in the absence of a single recognised legal definition for climate displaced people. Could the Tuvalu-Australia climate visa help to fill the policy gap by facilitating mobility before potential migrants reach refugee status?

Putting climate migration on the agenda of the Global North.

First, the astonishing popularity of the Tuvalu-Australia climate visa has raised the profile of climate migration in the Global North. Too often left off political agendas, or omitted from public discourse, climate migration has now hit the headlines in mainstream media. This is not a topic new to Tuvaluans or Pacific Islanders more generally. In 2019, Tuvalu tabled a draft resolution at the UN titled "Providing legal protection for persons displaced by the impacts of climate change". In 2014, the Kiribati government made plans to purchase undeveloped land in Fiji to facilitate its "migration with dignity" policy to escape rising sea levels. The Tuvalu-Australia climate visas now demonstrate that the challenges of climate migration are also starting to enter the consciousness of policy makers in the Global North. As first movers, Australia and Tuvalu also pave the way for other nations to follow suit. Perhaps the success of the climate visa programme will put pressure on comparable nations to make similar arrangements.

Facilitating climate migration with dignity.

The appetite for the climate visa amongst Tuvaluans is unprecedented. Tapugao Falefou, Tuvalu’s United Nation's ambassador, has said he was "startled by the huge number of people vying for this opportunity". Clearly, Tuvaluans recognise the extent of the climate change threat to their nation and want to take concrete action, resulting in one in three signing up. However, similar policies have not always been received positively. For example, New Zealand's "climate refugee" scheme piloted in 2017 was rejected by Pacific Islanders, who called on the New Zealand Government to instead focus its efforts on decarbonising and supporting adaptation efforts. The key difference to the Tuvalu-Australia climate visa? The climate visa provides a legal migration pathway for Tuvaluan nationals to move before they reach "refugee" status. This provides opportunities to migrate safely and with dignity before crisis is reached. It also affords each migrant the same health and education benefits and freedom to move and work as any Australian resident.

Untangling the relationship between displacement and climate change.

Historically, policy makers in the Global North have been cautious in establishing policies which draw distinct parallels between displaced people and climate change. Myriad policy factors are at play (including economic, health, and equality) and pinpointing cause and effect of climate change is complex and difficult. The result is policy paralysis. The Falepili Union appears to cut through this. It clearly identifies the cause of displacement as being driven by climate change, it provides for Australia and Tuvalu to work together to build Tuvalu's climate resilience, and crucially allows Tuvaluans to migrate to Australia to mitigate the effects of climate change on their lives and work.

A snapshot of key challenges:

As the first Tuvaluans secure climate visas, the practicalities and possible complications arising from the climate visa will begin to rear their heads. We have identified the following as key potential challenges facing this approach:

The Falepili Union demonstrates a willingness of the Global North to assist the Global South in its plight. However, schemes like the climate visa only go so far. Since 2005, Australia has decreased its carbon dioxide emissions by only 3% (excluding changes in land use). When balancing the prioritisation between climate change mitigation (e.g. decarbonising) and adaptation measures, it would be problematic to allow such schemes to distract from actively dealing with the root cause of climate migration, being the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, the continuation unsustainable industries etc.
As many as 216 million people are predicted to migrate internally (i.e. moving within their home country) as a result of climate change impacts by 2050. The climate visa approach does not address the immense challenges of mass internal migration.
A key concern with any accelerated mobility program is the impact on the source country. Tuvalu-Australia climate visas have been restricted to just 280 a year, a number agreed by the Tuvaluan government in an attempt to stem the effects of depopulation and loss of cultural knowledge in Tuvalu. However, as the scheme continues year on year, these impacts may become more pronounced.
Schemes of this nature could be mistreated as a means for larger countries to establish control over smaller nations. It has been suggested that some Global North nations have previously leveraged migration opportunities to counter China's growing geopolitical influence in the Pacific region. Cynics could suggest that the climate visa is an extension of such a strategy. Enele Sopoaga, a former prime minister of Tuvalu, has described the Falepili Union as "modern day colonialism at its worst", despite being a prominent advocate for urgent climate action in Tuvalu.
A question not yet clearly addressed is that of the practicalities of Tuvalu's sovereignty, if its physicality is wholly lost under water and its people are dispersed. The Falepili Union makes specific reference to the maintenance of Tuvalu's sovereignty and Australia's recognition of it. However, this may become difficult in practice, particularly if the Tuvalu nation becomes wholly dependent on its Australian neighbour for its physical home.

Ultimately, systemic action to mitigate climate change, one of the main root causes of extreme weather and rising sea levels, is the best way to address land insecurity and displacement of people. Alongside this, global policy development to cater to refugees displaced by climate change must progress. However, calls to act on climate change, cut carbon emissions and enact radical global policies have often fallen short and take time to implement. Tuvalu no longer has the luxury of time. Whilst the world wakes up to the imminence of climate change disaster, perhaps schemes such as the climate visa are an efficient means of helping those who do not have time to spare.

Our work in this area:

We have for several years been deeply concerned in the issues related to the displacement of people due to climate change. Whilst schemes such as the Tuvalu-Australia climate visa may be effective in the short-term, it is essential that at the same time global policy prepares for and acts on accelerating mass displacement and involuntary climate migration. This charge is championed by the World Refugee & Migration Council which has set out an action plan to engage the climate-induced migration issue at a practical level. We at Mishcon support this approach and established the Climate Migration Project ("CMP"), an initiative designed to promote dialogue between key stakeholders to support constructive, informed public and policy discussion to deliver measures to address the drivers of climate migration, and to protect displaced people through the development and operation of legal frameworks and/or policy solutions. The specific objectives of the CMP are to support efforts to:

Promote a consensus legal definition of climate migration
Raise the profile of climate migration with policy makers
Create policy, frameworks and legal systems for future solutions

If you are interested in supporting our work in this area, or would like to find out more, please contact Alexander Rhodes, Maria Patsalos or Charlotte Overington.