http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/23020 Published September 13, 2007 08:45 AM
Tuvalu about to disappear into the ocean
SEOUL (Reuters) - The tiny Pacific island state of Tuvalu on Thursday urged the rest of the world to do more to combat global warming before it sinks beneath the ocean.
The group of atolls and reefs, home to some 10,000 people, is barely two meters on average above sea-level and one study predicted at the current rate the ocean is rising could disappear in the next 30 to 50 years.
"We keep thinking that the time will never come. The alternative is to turn ourselves into fish and live under water," Tuvalu Deputy Prime Tavau Teii told Reuters in the South Korean capital where he was attending a conference on the environment.
"All countries must make an effort to reduce their emissions before it is too late for countries like Tuvalu," he said, calling the country one of the most vulnerable in the world to man-made climate change.
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"We'll try and maintain our own way of living on the island as long as we can. If the time comes we should leave the islands, there is no other choice but to leave."
Teii said his government had received indications from New Zealand it was prepared to take in people from the islands. About 2,000 of its population already live there.
But Australia, the other major economy in the region, had only given vague commitments.
"Australia was very reluctant to make a commitment even though they have been approached in a diplomatic way."
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This leads me to a question: In the future it is now for sure that we will see thousands perhaps millions of environmental refugees pushed out of their homes which will become uninhabitable because of climate change. Would any country be within their rights to refuse entry to refugees, even if it is a country that is primary in the cause of them leaving in the first place?