“There are currently no formal immigration pathways for Tuvaluans and I-Kiribati [Kiribati people] to migrate here for climate-related reasons,” says psychology researcher Dr Olivia Yates.

“Instead, people who choose to migrate must navigate through our existing, and wholly insufficient, immigration system. As a result, community members are falling through the cracks and into lives without valid visas. This is not climate justice.”

Yates is the lead author of a research report and policy brief, “Preparing for Climate Mobility from Tuvalu and Kiribati to Aotearoa,” released this month.

She says New Zealand needs to create a new climate mobility-specific visa pathway, and wants to see an education campaign to prepare Kiwis for Pacific climate migrants.

For her doctoral research at Auckland University, Yates worked with the Tuvaluan and Kiribati communities in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, gauging attitudes toward climate change and looking ahead to Aotearoa New Zealand’s responsibilities as a likely host of future climate migrants.

Aotearoa New Zealand has a key role to play in equitably supporting those who wish to move, Yates says. Her report suggests making the journey easier for climate migrants by reforming existing visa pathways and creating a new climate mobility-specific visa pathway.

She also wants to see support for communities to put down new roots by backing community-led initiatives to make resettlement easier, as well as support for maintaining identity and cultural heritage, and fostering community engagement

The report also emphasises the need to prepare New Zealanders for climate mobility from the Pacific with a communications strategy to “rewrite the narrative.”

Safeguarding cultural identities are key issues for Tuvalu and Kiribati, which are among the countries most at risk of climate-related loss and damage as sea levels rise. Both nations are low-lying atolls with an average elevation above sea level of no more than two metres, which means there are few opportunities for relocating within state borders to avoid climate threats.

Most people on the islands want to remain on their homelands, although some are looking to migrate, Yates says.

In 2015, New Zealand deported I-Kiribati man Ioane Teitiota who sought asylum claiming environmental degradation due to climate change made it unsafe for him and his family to return to their homeland.

In a landmark human rights case, the United Nations Human Rights Committee sided with the New Zealand Government but said countries should not deport asylum seekers if the effects of climate change in their homelands violated their rights to life with dignity.

“As neighbours to the Pacific, the New Zealand Government should ensure people can choose to stay in their homelands or to migrate elsewhere – and with dignity, into good jobs, with equitable pay and social protections – not as refugees,” Yates says.