Climate Refugees Move Up the Agenda

One government is considering easing the path for climate refugees to gain admission, and the United Nations is also reviewing ways to help them.

By definition, climate refugees are people with few choices beyond simple survival as sea levels rise, harvests wither and storms batter whatever refuge they have.

But that could be starting to change: as the UN’s annual climate change conference prepares for two weeks of work (6-17 November) in the German city of Bonn, there are signs of hope for those at risk, who by some estimates could number two billion people by 2100. 

First, New Zealand’s climate change minister has announced that the government may consider creating an experimental visa for people fleeing from climate change.  There are few details of the scheme yet, or of how many of the new visas could be available.

But a UK-based group, the Climate and Migration Coalition, has welcomed the minister’s reference to “humanitarian visas”, which it says avoids one of the toughest problems in climate migration law – how to differentiate a group of people who are fleeing climate change from those escaping crises driven by other forces.

“By creating a broader humanitarian visa it may be possible to create a safe legal route into New Zealand, without getting caught up in trying to define exactly how to decide whether someone is fleeing climate change or not”, the Coalition says.

Read more at Climate Refugees Move Up the Agenda