In the South Pacific, the island nation of Tuvalu has decided to turn to Web3 technology to make sure that its culture and society will be preserved for the future.
On November 15, the country’s foreign minister, Simon Coffey, told the COP27 climate summit that it was looking for alternative ways to protect the province’s heritage from rising sea levels caused by climate change. One such way is by recreating herself in the metaverse.
“With our Earth gone, we have no choice but to become the world’s first digital nation,” Coffey said in a video broadcast.
Up to 40% of the metropolitan area is claimed to be underwater at high tide, and the entire country is expected to be under water by the end of the century.
As Tuvalu builds itself up in the metaverse, it will become the first digital nation in the metaverse. Covey said that a country’s land, ocean, and culture are its most valuable assets and no matter what happens in the physical world, they will be kept safe in the cloud:
“Islands like this will not withstand rapid temperature increases, rising sea levels and drought, so we are going to recreate them hypothetically.”
Although Tuvalu could become the first sovereign nation to re-establish itself in the metaverse, other countries have already begun their own explorations into the digital frontier.
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In 2021, the Caribbean island of Barbados opened an embassy in the Dyscentraland Metaverse region and was the first to do so. An Aboriginal tribe in Australia also made plans to open an embassy in Metaverse earlier this year.
Other countries have started offering services in Metaverse. Norway recently opened a branch of the Federal Tax Offices in the Metaverse region in order to reach out to the next generation of users. The United Arab Emirates has established a new headquarters for the Ministry of Economy on a virtual land.
Tech-leading cities like Seoul, South Korea, and Santa Monica, California, have also established digital analogues.
