What if your country disappeared? Nation mulls digital existence as sea waters rise

credit: KLHVAC

Tuvalu's minister of foreign affairs spoke at last year's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, pleading with world leaders to take drastic action to protect his island nation from rising seas.

This year, he's speaking at COP27 again, this time from the shores of one of Tuvalu's nine islands, which are about halfway between Australia and Hawaii in the South Pacific Ocean.

If the world doesn't act, he says, Tuvalu will be the first country to disappear.

"Since COP26, the world has not acted and so we in the Pacific have had to act," Kofe says.

"As our land disappears, we have no choice but to become the world's first digital nation."

To that end, Tuvalu is moving its administrative and governance systems online so that they will remain intact no matter what happens in the physical world, reports the CBC.

It's not clear exactly what a digital nation would look like, but researchers at Queensland University of Technology say it could be a two-dimensional replica of Tuvalu, using both augmented and virtual reality to recreate the island nation's culture, reports the Conversation.

Kofe says Tuvalu is also working on a project called Future Now to preserve the country's land, people, nature, and

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