Cultivars of the Digital Kind

The process of digitisation, that is the archiving, mapping and replicating of geographical spaces in the digital realm is being adopted as a climate mitigation strategy for populations at risk of submersion from rising sea levels. In an address to the UN at COP27, Tuvalu Foreign Affairs minister Simon Kofe announced plans for the island nation to move its national sovereignty and statehood to the metaverse.

Working with developers and supported by Amazon Web Services, Tuvalu will become the world’s first digital nation as rising sea levels threaten to submerge the nation underwater. But what is lost in this digitisation process? And what is there to be gained for those left stateless?