Tuvalu, the country that would be close to disappearing and that would migrate to the metaverse

What would you say if tomorrow the president of the nation will announce that your country is going to end? But not for economic or political reasons, but because planet Earth is really going to take care of making it disappear from the map.

Imagine the amount of history, culture and facts that would die with it. The memories and families that made more than just a home there would be devastated to know that everything could be lost.

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Well, that’s the case. Tuvalu, a small country that is on a tightropebecause soon part of the history of humanity will be erased in the waves of the sea.

This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tuvalu, Simon Kofe, for several years in different statements in which he has made a international call to stop climate change that he is threatening the 11,000 people of his nation and the story behind it.

Thanks to the progressive rise in sea level caused by the melting of the poles, the island has been involved in a worrying situation: it is flooding. This, added to the characteristics of the region, will soon make it an uninhabitable place.

The fourth smallest country in the world

Tuvalu -formerly known as the Ellice Islands- is a group of nine small territories in the South Pacific which became independent from the United Kingdom in 1978. These have the peculiar characteristic that no point is more than 4 and a half meters above sea level and with climate change, that quality that was once part of their tourist attraction could become a very big danger.

According to the official page of the government of Tuvalu, this country is a constitutional monarchy which has a cabinet made up of the prime minister, elected by a majority of the 15 members of parliament (who are elected every four years), and several ministers who are in charge of different sectors, such as Culture or Industry and Commerce .

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Secondly, Tuvalu’s total land area is less than 26 square kilometersthus positioning itself as the fourth smallest country in the world, behind Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru.

But this is not the only thing that characterizes this small nation. According to the United Nations Development Program, Tuvalu is a resource poor country due to its geography and the very effects of climate change. The porous and salty soil -which has been transformed thanks to the constant storms and floods- has made it almost ‘unusable’ for planting the few fruits and vegetables that grow there.

In addition, the fish have also become dangerous. Ciguatera poisoning affects reef fish that have ingested microalgae expelled by the bleached coral, becoming extremely toxic to humans.

All this, added to the growing threat of being engulfed by water, has encouraged governments to ask for help or seek solutions so as not to disappear completely.

The many cries for help

Despite the great difficulties that Tuvalu has had to get ahead, the world had not set its eyes on him until Kofe decided to give different statements in several videos that made more than one reflect.

The most recent was a small speech in which he emerged in the middle of the Te Afualiku islet, which seems to be the first to be totally submerged. Everything looks normal at first until the camera begins to move away as the president is speaking.

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Suddenly the background that was before some big palm trees change for a big black sky and the edges of the ground were cut as if the graphics of a video game were loading.

That was the way in which he announced that the island could be the only country -for now- existing in the multiverse, as a measure to preserve everything that they are.

“Tuvalu could be the first country in the world to exist solely in cyberspace, but if global warming continues unchecked, it won’t be the last,” he explained in the video, which can be seen not only as an announcement, but also as a last cry for help.

“It is the only way to preserve the country piece by piece so that your children and grandchildren can remember what your home once was,” he said amid the melancholy of the clip.

But this was not the first call for attention that the minister has made. In 2021, a video addressed to COP26 went viral due to the harshness of its message. In his speech, he appeared with the flag of his country and the United Nations, a pulpit and a blue background.

“We call for global carbon neutrality by mid-century“, he claimed, referring to the global goal of balancing greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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Little by little the plane moved away, showing the man his soaked knees and his well-dressed gray suit, in the middle of the ocean. It was then that he began to talk about the consequences that climate change has brought to his country.

“We’re sinking but it’s the same for everyone“, he commented after explaining that sea level rise is an imminent risk for atoll nations.

The clip quickly went viral for its apocalyptic essence that clearly showed the inevitable future that humanity in general could face.

“We cannot wait for the speeches if the water rises. We have to take bold actions today to ensure there is a tomorrow,” she concluded.

The Metaverse: the new refuge of history?

According to Adrian Ma, professor of journalism and digital tools, at Toronto Metropolitan University, The metaverse is a virtual space where different worlds converge in three dimensions. It could be confused with virtual reality, which is already seen in some video games and platforms that can be accessed with a helmet or special glasses.

However, the professor says that: “While virtual reality is considered a key ingredient in the metaverse recipe, entry into the metaverse is not (and should not) be limited to having a virtual reality headset.”

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This refers to the fact that, within the objectives set by great magnates such as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, is that Anyone can access this world without having to have a virtual reality headset. That is, the possibility of entering through cell phones, tablets and smartphones is raised, in order to make it closer to the human being.

Likewise, the idea is that in this world in three dimensions, the user You can have an avatar capable of moving between different scenarios and performing all kinds of actions without any difficulty.

Now, the possibilities that open up with this idea can be almost infinite. From worlds dedicated to leisure and fun, to countries seeking refuge in an alternate world so as not to die.

There are three specific aspects that can be recreated through the metaverse: the territory and its natural landscapes, the sovereignty of the territory and its culture, which includes the language, its norms and customs, as well as traditions and histories.

According to what Kofe explains, these decisions were made because the world did not listen to them.

“We have seen that the temperature rise projections remain well above 1.5 degrees Celsiuswhich predicts the imminent disappearance of islets like this,” he said after commenting that the problem had already been exposed at COP26 and assuring that nobody did anything about it.

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The project itself is quite ambitious. Although it is not a far-fetched proposition, the number of technological challenges related to design, programming and the storage capacity that the servers will need makes it more difficult than you might think.

“Without global awareness and global commitment to our shared well-being, we will soon find the rest of the world joining us online as their lands disappear,” he last warned.

Another way to perpetuate your own sentence

The metaverse could become a new way of looking at history, but not the continuity of humanity. The beauty of nature and the sensations that you have in real life are very difficult to replicate no matter how much technology you have.

In addition, it should be noted that the virtual also has implications in reality, since In the end, for them to work, electricity is needed.

In an article on the Australian portal ‘The Conversation’ the point of the carbon footprint and likewise the metaverse generates a significant amount of greenhouse gases.

But how can something virtual become contaminating? In an investigation carried out by the British scientific magazine ‘Nature’, a group of experts estimated that by 2025, 20 percent of the world’s energy would be used for issues related to the Internet and its contents.

(Of interest: Climate change: the increasing risk of the irreversible).

Around the 50 percent of data centers now contain more than 5,000 servers and, in general, they have more than 1,000 square meters due to the space -and technical aspects- that they require. This translates into electricity, sky-high bills, and heavy pollution.

This is why, in the end, to maintain the servers and places that provide all the online services we know today will require vast amounts of energy that could emit up to 5.5 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, an issue that will affect climate change, will contribute to the melting of the poles and that nations like Tuvalu will be forgotten about the sea.

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LAURA NATALIA BOHORQUEZ RONCANCIO
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