Young people in island nations face an existential question: Should they stay or should they go?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — It’s the uncomfortable talk that as a young woman, she knows she should have with her parents. They alluded to it, once, but couldn’t quite address it directly. And Grace Malie was glad to avoid the subject with them, though she and her friends do discuss it.

As her home, the tiny but shrinking island of Tuvalu, slowly erodes from climate change’s rising seas, should she rough it out on the remaining high land? Or should she flee her home, her culture, her heritage and her past to go to Australia — in what her government negotiated as “Plan B?”

The 25-year-old, who on Wednesday addresses a special U.N. General Assembly summit on sea level rise as a representative for her country, has years to decide — decades, even. But it’s a decision that, like the mythical sword of Damocles, hangs over a nation’s entire generation. And two of the biggest issues facing the summit are what to do about people like Grace Malie and how countries like Tuvalu will keep the sovereignty even when they lose their land.

“This is not about leaving,” said Kamal Amakrane, managing director of the Global Center for Climate Mobility and climate envoy to the president of the General Assembly. “This is not about giving up. This is not about giving in. This is about agency.”

Your whole world could be gone

Such a situation is like no other. It can’t be compared to when other climate, conflict or economic refugees have to flee with little or no notice as storms hit or drought takes away livelihoods, said Alex Randall, the United Kingdom-based coordinator of the Climate and Migration Coalition.

The vast majority people permanently fleeing climate-related disasters stay within their own country and travel short distances — such as those