Expert Response: Climate Change and Tuvaluan Migration
Following our 4 June newsletter discussing the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union, Professor Ilan Kelman shared the following response, offering additional legal and policy context on how the treaty has been interpreted. We are pleased to publish his commentary as part of our commitment to informed discussions on issues affecting island communities.
The Island Innovation newsletter of 4 June 2026 referred to "the Falepili Mobility Visa, the world's first climate-linked migration pathway." The text of the 2023 Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty is clear that the visa offer is different. The treaty does not even use the words "migration," "migrant," "resettlement," or "relocation."
No doubt exists that we are changing the climate rapidly and substantively forcing huge changes for Tuvalu and the world. The issue here concerns how the treaty has been characterised and interpreted.
The treaty does describe support for Tuvalu to address climate change and does describe support for some Tuvaluans to move to Australia. These topics are dealt with in separate treaty Articles and are not connected in the treaty's text. Article 2 is titled "Climate cooperation," emphasising that "The Parties commit to work together to help the citizens of Tuvalu to stay in their homes with safety and dignity" (paragraph 3). To continue living in Tuvalu, climate change adaptation is essential (paragraphs 2c and 3) even as paragraph 1 refers to "the existential threat posed by climate change."
Separately and without cross-reference to climate cooperation, Article 3 is about "Human mobility with dignity," offering "a special human mobility pathway" (Article 1, paragraph b) for some Tuvaluans to move to Australia. The verb used is "move" and the noun used is "mobility," rather than "migrate" and "migration" respectively. The "Explanatory Memorandum" accompanying the treaty uses "immigration" twice, but its "Mobility with Dignity" section does not mention "climate." The "Falepili Mobility Pathway Exposure Document," published for the opening of applications on 16 June 2025, brings climate change and the mobility pathway slightly closer together, still without linking these topics.
The idea that this treaty is about "climate migration", "climate change displacement", "climate refugees", "climate change refugees", or similar is a misinterpretation fuelled by media and commentators who do not seem to have read the treaty. Others, who have read the treaty, explain how poorly Tuvaluans were consulted when developing it and how key issues for Tuvaluans are not addressed, such as reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
As Island Innovation’s newsletter of 4 June 2026 described, many Tuvaluans see the agreement as a "sellout" and "neocolonial imposition," while Tuvalu follows the treaty's words through actions such as the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project (TCAP) and using "the migration pathway as a deliberate choice and a return option." The unnuanced framing of the Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty as relating to population movements linked to climate change needs to stop.