LTP 2026.4 - Bibatshu Thapa Chhetri
"Replicas for Sovereignty: What Tuvalu's turn to digital statehood teaches us about climate injustice"
Faced with rising seas and global inaction, Tuvalu is becoming the world's first digital nation -- a brilliant, defiant, and deeply troubling act of fighting for sovereignty against a system that has failed to protect it. This talk explores what's gained and lost when vulnerable nations are forced to reimagine statehood itself, and why the Global South's fight for physical survival deserves a far louder place in climate conversations.
Speaker Bio:
Bibatshu Thapa Chhetri is a climate justice and global development advocate. A recent graduate of Colby College, he is currently an analyst at BCE Consulting in Boston and will join Cloudbreak Energy this summer to help scale renewable energy deployment across the country. Originally from Nepal, he co-led Project Digital Kisan — a Davis Projects for Peace grant-winning initiative that brought internet connectivity and digital tools to farming communities in Dolakha to promote food sovereignty — and later interned at the International Peace Institute, supporting climate finance policy research for the governments of Fiji, Palau, and other small island nations ahead of COP29. He has also served as a RINGO observer delegate to COP28 in Dubai and the UN CTCN Advisory Board in Copenhagen in 2025. His talk on Tuvalu draws on both his IPI work and his senior-year research at Colby on the intersection of technology, policy, and climate change in small island nations.
Lost The Plot:
Lost The Plot is a monthly seminar series - virtual and free - that talks about the systemic issues of climate change. Open to all but targeted at professionals working in climate and sustainability who want to more deeply connect with climate - which often is quite absent from our careers - and examine what it is We are all doing (and NOT doing) to address this generation-defining challenge. We seek to dispel the technooptimist standpoint inherent to the broader effort today, and instead look critically at the sociopolitical systems that have prohibited stronger and more meaningful action to date. Each month a different speaker will lead a unique discussion, come for one or all, and view whichever you miss on YouTube after. Learn more at www.lost-the-plot.com .