Penisita Taniela was sitting on a straw mat in a stilt-raised house on a narrow slit of coral in the South Pacific when he first saw the news on television: Scientists visiting the islands of Tuvalu determined that someday his entire country would drown.

That was back in the late 1980s. Over the next decade, Taniela began to see changes on his home island of Funafuti, one of nine islands that make up the nation of Tuvalu: High tides were getting higher, beaches were eroding, and water was coming up through the ground. Rather than watch their home be swallowed by the sea, Taniela's family relocated to New Zealand, leaving behind two houses they built in Tuvalu.

Scientists expect oceans to rise about four feet in the next 50 to 100 years -- if Greenland's ice sheet melts, that estimate jumps to 25 feet. The highest point in Tuvalu is only 15 feet above sea level. Thousands of people in the Pacific, and as many as 150 million worldwide, live in low-lying areas vulnerable to ocean flooding. These people present a new breed of refugee: the climate refugee. But without recognition from the United Nations -- which defines a refugee as a person forced to leave his or her homeland because of war or political persecution -- these displaced people might end up with nowhere to go.

In an effort to attract international attention to their plight and global climate change, the government of the island nation bought its way into the United Nations by selling its most valuable asset: In 2000 it leased the country's domain name (.tv) to television networks worldwide for $50 million in royalties.