Climate change and human security in Tuvalu

At the local level, global climate change is exacerbating current environmental conditions while creating entirely new environmental and human hazards. The thesis of this article is that these new threats merge with preexisting vulnerabilities, creating a hybridized force that ripples through every aspect of society and threatens human security. The vulnerabilities intensify as these communities lack the adaptive and developmental capacity to address the multifarious effects, further undermining their human security. This article examines the case of the Funafuti, Tuvalu, and the effect of a warming Southern Pacific Ocean on Tuvaluan societal structural flows and processes. As the case demonstrates, climate change becomes more than an environmental issue; rather, it is a global social problem bound by multiple human security issues. For extremely vulnerable countries like Tuvalu, the case suggests that a human security approach best captures the dynamics of climate impacts in vulnerable communities, and, as such, requires adjustments in the global climate regime's current approach. This conclusion also represents a challenge to current scholarship which suggests that the small islands will be uninhabitable simply from sea level rise.