Excerpt from reuters.com
World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Friday that young people in the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu need training to help them move and adapt to climate change as he visited the frontline of the battle against rising sea levels.
On the first visit by a World Bank chief to Tuvalu – where 11,00 people live on 26 square km (10 square miles) of land stretched across nine atolls – the impact of the changes was clear, he said, as the tiny nation fortified its ports and reclaimed coastal land.
Soon after taking on the top job in June last year, Banga expanded the global lender’s remit for the first time in 80 years to encompass climate change, under the banner of alleviating poverty in a liveable planet.
Scientists say by 2050, half of Tuvalu’s main town of Funafuti will be inundated by tides. A climate migration deal struck with Australia last year gives its population a pathway to move when its atolls become uninhabitable.
