Tuvalu : climate change and migration, relationships between household vulnerability, human mobility and climate change
Abstract
The main goals of the Pacific Climate Change and Migration (PCCM) project are twofold:
-> To increase protection of individuals and communities that are vulnerable to climate change displacement and migration through targeted national and regional policies; and
-> To increase labour mobility opportunities for Pacific Islanders, through well-managed labour
migration schemes.
The objective of the study is to build institutional capacity and knowledge to enable Tuvalu to better plan and manage the impacts of climate change on migration. Specifically, through
developing migration indicators, providing information on labour migration and gathering data on community attitudes to climate change-related migration, the report can contribute to the development of climate change responses and national action strategies to mitigate the risk of displacement and enhance national capacity to effectively participate in regional, bilateral and global schemes on labour migration.
To this end, the current report presents the results of the first nationally representative empirical study of relationships between household vulnerability, human mobility and climate change in the Pacific. Findings are based upon quantitative and qualitative fieldwork carried out in Tuvalu during the early part of 2015 by researchers from the United Nations University (UNU), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the University of the South Pacific (USP). Project fieldwork involved implementation of a total of 320 household surveys in Funafuti (170), Nanumea (70), and Vaitupu (80). Participatory Research Approach (PRA) tools and a Q study were used to complement the overall analysis. The results from the fieldwork were used to build an agent based model (ABM) to project future flows of migration within and out of Tuvalu.
