"Australia’s refugee policies may result in some migration from Tuvalu. However, any residents that do migrate, won’t be relocating to avoid dangerous changes to the island nation resulting from climate change."

 

"An Associated Press (AP) story reports that Australia has offered refuge to up to 280 residents of Tuvalu each year, allowing them to 'escape rising seas and other ravages of climate change.' Australia’s refugee policies may result in some migration from Tuvalu. However, any residents that do migrate, won’t be relocating to avoid dangerous changes to the island nation resulting from climate change, because data show Tuvalu, like many other island nations, is actually growing amid modest warming, rather than being lost to rising seas. ...
    "As discussed in Climate at a Glance: Islands and Sea Level Rise, data presented in multiple studies show that most islands and atolls in the Pacific Ocean, including Tuvalu, are growing, not shrinking. Rising seas are depositing sand and sediment, building up the height of islands and expanding their coastlines. Also, despite many predictions that island nations in the Pacific would spawn waves of climate refugees, the population of Tuvalu and other islands have steadily grown, not decreased. ...
    "The 2010 scientific findings [showing the small island nations of Tuvalu and Kiribati were growing, rather than being submerged beneath rising seas] were confirmed and expanded upon in 2015 when the same group of researchers published a peer-reviewed study of 600 coral reef islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The researchers found approximately 40 percent of those islands remained stable, and 40 percent grew in size.
    "As 'National Geographic' reported, 'Some islands grew by as much as 14 acres (5.6 hectares) in a single decade, and Tuvalu’s main atoll, Funafuti—33 islands distributed around the rim of a large lagoon—has gained 75 acres (32 hectares) of land during the past 115 years.'
    "Research published in 2018 in the peer reviewed journal 'GIScience & Remote Sensing' confirmed the earlier study's results, concluding that 15 of the 28 uninhabited islands on Tuvalu’s Funafuti Atoll saw their shorelines increase in recent years.
    "Nor have tropical cyclones increased in number or become stronger during the recent period of modest warming, so that can’t be a factor driving Tuvaluan’s from their homes.
    "Australia’s government can welcome as many Tuvaluan’s to their shores as it wishes, but, as it does so, Australia’s citizens should be aware that despite their government’s claims, any influx of migrants from Tuvalu is not being driven by climate change."

~ H. Sterling Burnett, from his post 'Tuvaluan’s May ‘Escape’ to Australia, but if They Do, Associated Press, It Won’t Be Because of Climate Change'