James Conway arrived in Tuvalu 12 years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer, working on a solar and diesel electrification project
Now Tuvalu's shrewd managers get to calculate the opportunities presented by nature's grandest, most worrying potential crisis. "In my next life," says James Conway, Tuvalu's highest-paid public servant, as he smokes a cigarette on the beach outside his office, "I want to come back as a small island state. All told, it's a good deal. Virtually all of Tuvalu's income comes from one source: the idea of nationhood."
A 43-year-old Californian with degrees in energy economics from Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania, Conway arrived in Tuvalu 12 years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer, working on a solar and diesel electrification project. He fell in love with the country, not least of all for its glorious fragility; during a storm in 1993, ocean waves swept through his house while he slept. "This is the sharp edge of the climate-change debate," he tells me. "Forget politicians and scientists and activists. What it boils down to is waves in my bedroom."
After eight years in Tuvalu, Conway moved to Bonn, where, from 1998 to 1999, he worked as an informal adviser for the International Climate Change Secretariat, a unit of the UN. When he returned to Tuvalu, flush with intimations of the climate change to come, it was in his current, amorphous position as special assistant to the Office of the Prime Minister, a role that he says "commands more power, influence, and respect than I'd ever get back home." Some islanders feel that Conway cuts a mildly suspicious figure-one person used the term "shadow government." None, however, doubt his devotion to scheming on behalf of Tuvalu's welfare. He is widely rumored to be the driving force behind the proposed lawsuit, which he describes as "embryonic," and he coyly admits to fielding inquiries from Greenpeace "and an array of people in the legal profession who are looking for a toehold to bring action against greenhouse-gas emitters."
Conway is smart-surely the smartest American politician in Tuvalu. He knows that Tuvalu is not the only nation facing a threat from global warming, and that it can easily be exploited for symbolic purposes, since, as he says, "Tuvalu presents an enticing image for getting the message out to viewers." But above all he knows that symbolic gestures can sometimes generate real revenue streams. "It's hard to know in what form global warming will bring in funding," he reflects. "It's too soon to tell. But I think it will. Compensation is an issue."
So, no great global-warming windfall yet. But there's still time. Conway finishes his cigarette and locks the prime minister's offices. "Obviously," he says, swinging his briefcase, "Tuvaluans are hysterically concerned about climate change. But Tuvalu has no leverage, internationally, other than its ability to draw attention to its plight and wake up the world. There's no such thing as bad publicity."
We meander along a newly built road. Night is falling, and I offer to buy him a drink. He declines. He has something of a solitary nature, this palagi power broker. "When they make the movie of the story of Tuvalu," he jokes, "I hope they get Sean Penn to play me."
