Rising seas, rising compassion

Every time the world gathers to measure its progress in addressing climate change, doubts and hopes collide. The annual United Nations climate conference that started today in Dubai is no different. It will showcase new advances in technology but underscore missed targets.

One point these meetings repeatedly affirm, however, is that smaller gestures and local agency matter as much as global agreements in breaking the world’s dependency on fossil fuels and adapting to a warming planet. A novel agreement between Australia and the island nation of Tuvalu in the South Pacific holds useful lessons.

The two countries brokered the world’s first bilateral agreement on climate mobility earlier this month. With a highest elevation of just 15 feet, the nine-island nation of Tuvalu faces the risk of being swallowed by sea-level rise. Under the deal, designed to ensure “human mobility with dignity,” Australia has extended an open invitation to Tuvalu’s 11,000 residents to study, live, and work in Australia permanently.

Critics of the offer note that it gives Australia a veto over future diplomatic relationships Tuvalu may pursue with other countries, reflecting Canberra’s strategic concerns about China’s regional influence. But it shows that climate agreements between nations – particularly between richer and poorer nations – do not always hinge on financial obligations. They can be forged on common values like compassion and justice.

“Dignified, rights-based responses to climate mobility are crucial,” notes Jane McAdam, director of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at the University of New South Wales. The deal emphasizes the importance of preserving individual agency. An open assurance of safe haven, she said, also means Tuvaluans can “stay in their homes with safety and dignity” for as long as they desire.

The deal also reflects a growing view that adapting to climate change fits into the existing international framework of rights – and that nations are therefore bound together by obligations of mutual care. “A human rights approach ... has the potential to address injustices and inequities that exist between states,” the authors wrote in the journal Climate Action last week. That involves protecting “the adaptive capacity of individuals” amid climate disruptions.

The government officials, scientists, and activists seeking new resolve and cooperation in Dubai can draw on the world’s expanding pursuit of solutions to climate change through local measures. In their response to the potential threat of climate dislocation, Australia and Tuvalu offer one model of adaptation rooted in a defense of individual dignity.