‘Tuvalu is literally sinking’: Island nation sounds red alert for climate change

As world powers negotiate measures to curb global temperature rise at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, representatives of one island nation say that, for their people, the disaster is already here. Tuvalu Minister of Finance Seve Paeniu joins Yahoo News Senior Editor David Knowles at COP26 to discuss the effort to secure Tuvalu’s future.

Video transcript

SEVE PAENIU: Tuvalu is literally sinking. That's why we are here at COP26 to tell our story to the world. The world needs to take action now.

DAVID KNOWLES: What are the changes that you have seen in your lifetime due to climate change in your home country?

SEVE PAENIU: There are storm surges when there are cyclones that just come and wash right across the whole land, from the other side to the other side. Never that happened before. We have land territory actually being submerged or disappearing.

And also the impact on livestock and agriculture. So food security has been severely threatened and even our fisheries and ocean's resources. We see coral bleaching, acidification of the seawater, the ocean that's now affecting our food supply chain. So we are, in Tuvalu, living the climate change.

DAVID KNOWLES: When you see something like climate change and the threat that it represents, it must strike at the very identity of a culture. And I'm wondering if you could just reflect on how you see that?

SEVE PAENIU: Yeah, you have hit it on the top of the nail. That's exactly how we see it in Tuvalu. We do not want to leave or relocate or migrate away from Tuvalu, because that's part of our culture, our identity, our heritage.

We are working on amending our Constitution to ensure the permanency of statehood of Tuvalu statehood and the maritime boundaries, regardless of the effect of sea level rise on our land territory, you know, maritime boundaries, that we hope that could be a platform for setting a new precedent under international law so that whatever happens due to the impact of sea level rise, Tuvalu can still claim its sovereignty and statehoodness.