Australia offers climate refuge to Tuvalu citizens threatened by rising seas

Citizens of climate-threatened Tuvalu will have the right to live in Australia under a landmark pact unveiled Friday – an offer of refuge as their Pacific homeland is lost beneath the seas. 

Prime ministers Kausea Natano and Anthony Albanese inked a treaty to help Tuvalu's 11,000 residents tackle climate change, and to take up sanctuary should the worst fears materialise.

Tuvalu is among the world's most vulnerable nations due to rising sea levels.

Two of Tuvalu's nine coral islands have already largely disappeared under the waves, and climate scientists fear the entire archipelago will be uninhabitable within the next 80 years.