Tuvalu could become the first country existing only in the metaverse – but why?
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Tuvalu is an archipelago of nine islands in the Pacific Ocean, about midway between Australia and Hawaii. Home to 12,000 residents, it is also seriously threatened by rising sea levels resulting from climate change. Worst case scenarios expect that the entire nation will be completely submerged by the end of the century. Many other islands around the world face similar risks.
During COP27, Tuvalu’s foreign minister, Simon Kofe, announced their plan to become “the world’s first digital nation” by replicating the entire country in the metaverse, an immersive digital environment facilitated by virtual reality and augmented reality headsets.
A year before, during COP26, Kofe had already urged international leaders to take “bold and alternative action today to secure tomorrow”. On that occasion, he made a lasting impression by standing knee-deep in the sea whilst addressing the UN’s climate conference.
Despite his evocative speech, his previous message was not fully heard, and Kofe chose, once again, an innovative and chilling way to express the need to take urgent measures against the climate crisis. In a video set in the digital twin of the Te Afualiku islet, he presented the Future Now project which would allow for:
The maintenance of government sovereignty, over a virtual land instead of a physical one. The Tuvaluan government is already working to ensure that Tuvalu will still be recognised internationally as a state and its maritime boundaries maintained, even if the islands are underwater. This proved to be a challenge as it is an area of international law with no precedent.
It is not the first time that nations experiment with the virtual world. For instance, Sweden set up a virtual embassy on Second Life, an online platform. Seoul and Barbados have also announced they would offer respectively administrative and consular services, in the metaverse.
It is technically possible to create beautiful replicates of Tuvalu’s territory, as well as provide people with interactive spaces to maintain their own culture. It would be a rather interesting concept to have a virtual museum to showcase Tuvaluan heritage and culture. However, having as many as 12,000 citizens interact together would be a technological challenge with issues of computing power and bandwidth. Furthermore, the infrastructure behind the metaverse is far from carbon-neutral, requiring a lot of energy and maintenance. It is predicted that by 2025, the internet will consume 20% of global electricity.
But do any of these technical details matter? The short answer is no.
Kofe knows very well that the metaverse is not the way to save Tuvalu. On the contrary, going virtual as a response to what happens on Earth is not a solution at all, because of how resource-intensive the metaverse is. Kofe proposed several other initiatives to limit the repercussions of climate change, such as a fossil-fuel non-proliferation treaty. This treaty, already called for by the Pacific nation Vanuatu, would be an international agreement to stop burning fossil fuels, a predominant cause of the climate crisis. It is, however, a very smart, as well as desperate, attempt to remind everyone of the dire situation of the archipelago. His video was relayed and commented on by the press and media around the world, helping to spread awareness of the distressing situation at hand.
We can only hope that those able to act, who heard him say “We must start [taking action] today. Otherwise, within a lifetime, Tuvalu will only exist here.”, will indeed take action.