Last week, New Zealand First leader Winston Peters said Aotearoa’s immigration settings were “no way to treat our Pacific cousins”.

“All Pacific people want is a fair go, equivalent to what other nations are getting, and they’re not getting it,” he said outside Parliament.

While Peters’ comments were made in the context of the Pacific Justice petition, the concept of the Pacific as “family” has become a common rhetoric used by politicians and leaders across New Zealand.

In 2018, former Prime Minister Dame Jacinda Ardern spoke on such issues facing the Pacific.

“We are the Pacific too, and we are doing our best to stand with our family as they face these threats,” she said during a talk at the Paris Institute.

At the Pacific Islands Forum last year, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: “This is the Pacific family and we prioritise the centrality of the Pacific Islands Forum.”

But is Aotearoa doing enough to live up to this “Pacific family” rhetoric in the face of daunting and life-changing threats, such as climate change, continues to reshape the region?

Discussions and comparisons continue to arise off the back of Australia’s Falepili Union Treaty, which saw the first group of Tuvaluan migrants relocate towards the end of 2025.

Australia’s implementation of the treaty has sparked criticism over whether New Zealand is failing its Pacific neighbours when it comes to climate-related migration.

‘Increasingly perilous situations’
For Pacific Islanders hoping to move to Aotearoa, there is a pathway.

Under the Pacific Access Category (PAC) ballot, 150 people from specifically Kiribati and 250 from Tuvalu — two of the most vulnerable nations at the forefront of climate impacts — can gain residency every year.

Applicants must pay $1385, pass health checks, meet English requirements, be under 45, and secure a job offer.

Dr Olivia Yates has spent years researching climate mobility from Kiribati and Tuvalu.

She said the tension around climate mobility sits not in a lack of awareness, but in the design of the system itself.

“I think the main takeaway is that New Zealand’s current approach to climate mobility, or at least for the last five years — things are starting to change now — but initially — we do a lot of research, get a lot more information, and leave immigration systems as they are,” she said.

She said Pacific neighbours islands are facing “increasingly difficult” circumstances.

“Disasters are becoming more frequent … the access to food and to water is being challenged because of these creeping impacts of climate change. So as the New Zealand government takes one step forward, I feel like climate change is sort of a step ahead of us,” Dr Yates said.

“It sounds very doom and gloom, but the other thing I would say is that our Pacific neighbours, fundamentally and primarily, want to stay in place. Nobody wants to have to leave.”

In the meantime, people are moving, often through pathways never intended to respond to climate pressure.

“People are using these laws to come to the country and their laws that were not really set up to address climate change and the movement of people in response to climate change,” Dr Yates said.

“They’re primarily economically motivated, and so this creates a whole bunch of issues that are the downstream consequence of using a system for something that is not what it was designed for.”

She said that PAC ballot, created in 2001, has effectively become “the de facto pathway for people from Kiribati and Tuvalu to move here for reasons related to climate change”.

While many migrants cite work, family or opportunity as the primary motivations, these distinctions are becoming blurred.

“It’s kind of becoming increasingly difficult to separate climate change drivers from these factors,” Dr Yates explained.

And the consequences can be significant. When visas hinge on employment and strict eligibility criteria, families can find themselves vulnerable if those circumstances shift.

“Our current immigration laws are being used in a way that they weren’t designed for, and this is having really negative consequences on people, specifically from Kiribati and Tuvalu,” she said.

“On the other side of that, those that wish to stay, whether because they choose to or because they can’t afford to leave, that visas aren’t available to them, and they start to face increasingly perilous situations that breach their rights.”

Lacking a plan
Kiribati community leader Kinaua Ewels, who works closely with Pacific migrants settling in Aotearoa, said the system’s rigidity has left many feeling excluded and unsupported.

She does not believe New Zealand is set up to deal with the realities of climate migration

“I’m hoping the New Zealand government could help the people who are able to move on their own, using their own money, but when they get here, they can actually access work opportunities,” she said.

Ewels said the PAC still feels restrictive, and lacks a plan to help new arrivals adapt or secure employment.

“They pressure them to look for their own job. There’s no plan for the government to help them settle very easily, to run away from climate change and their life situations back on the island,” Ewels said.

“More can be done.”

According to Ewels, the families who do arrive with the hopes of safety and stability, end up struggling to navigate basic systems, such as healthcare and employment, and get no formal support.

“It’s very restricted in the way that it’s not supportive to the people from the Pacific Islands,” she said.

NZ govt ‘not ready to bring climate refugees’

Ewels said that while New Zealand spoke of the Pacific as “family,” those words continued ringing hollow for communities who saw little practical support.

“They use the family name, which is a very meaningful and deep word back home, but the process is not done yet,” she said.

“In reality, the government is not actually ready to bring people over here in terms of climate refugees or people needing to move because of climate change.”

Ewels said if New Zealand truly viewed the Pacific as family, that connection would extend itself into some meaningful collaboration with Pacific community leaders here in Aotearoa, who could help them navigate the complexities of this situation.

“If the government talks about family, they should work with us, the community leaders, so we can help them at least make sure people are warmly welcomed and supported when they come here,” Ewels said.

Dr Yates said the government was making efforts, but warned the the pace of policy was struggling to keep up with the pace of change happening in the world today.

“I would say that the New Zealand government is trying. But as the government takes one step forward, climate change is starting to outpace us.”

Pacific sea levels have risen by as much as 15cm over the past three decades.

There are predictions that around 50,000 Pacific people across the region could lose their homes each year as the climate crisis reshapes their environments.

In the past decade, one in 10 people from Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu have already migrated.

Kiribati community leader Charles Kiata told RNZ Pacific in October last year that life on the Micronesian island nation was becoming increasingly difficult, as it was being hit by severe storms, with higher temperatures and drought.

“Every part of life, food, shelter, health, is being affected and what hurts the most is that our people feel trapped. They love their home, but their home is slowly disappearing,” Kiata said at the time.

Crops are dying and fresh drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce for the island nation.

Kiata said Kiribati overstayers in New Zealand were anxious they would be sent back home.

“Deporting them back to flooded lands or places with no clean water like Kiribati is not only cruel but it also goes against our shared Pacific values.”

In 2020, Kiribati man Ioane Teitiota took New Zealand to the United Nations Human Rights Committee after his refugee claim, based on sea-level rise, was rejected.

The committee did find his deportation lawful, although ruled that governments must consider the human rights impacts of climate change when assessing deportations.

The term “climate refugee” remains unrecognised in binding international law. It is a term Dr Yates has previously told RNZ was always flawed.

“Climate change is this unique phenomenon because what is forcing people out of their countries comes from elsewhere,” she said.

“At face value, the idea of being a refugee didn’t fit.”

Many communities suffering at the hands of climate change do not want to leave their home, their culture, their land, their community.

Dr Yates said the term “climate mobility” was a better fit — describing it as a spectrum that recognises the desire for communities to have options.

Australia’s Falepili Treaty v NZ’s climate pathways
In late 2025, the first Tuvaluans began relocating to Australia under the Falepili Union, a bilateral treaty signed with Tuvalu in 2023.

The agreement creates a new permanent visa for up to 280 Tuvaluans each year, allocated by ballot. Applicants do not need a job offer, there is no age cap, nor disability exclusion.

The treaty has led debate on online platforms around why New Zealand does not offer a similar pathway.

International law expert Professor Jane McAdam is cautious against simplistic comparisons between New Zealand and Australia.

“It has been mislabelled in a lot of the international media as a climate refugee visa when it’s nothing of the sort,” Prof McAdam said.

“There’s often nothing in this visa that requires you to show that you’re concerned about the impacts of climate change in the future,” she said.

Professor McAdam pointed out that New Zealand had never been viewed as “totally useless” in climate-related migration of Pacific peoples.

“Historically, New Zealand has been seen as leading the way when it comes to providing pathways for people in the Pacific to move,” she said, noting the PAC visa and labour mobility schemes as examples.

“New Zealand has been leading the way globally in recognising how existing international refugee law and human rights work,” she added.

That includes influential tribunal decisions examining how climate impacts intersect with refugee and human rights law, even where claims ultimately failed.

In 2023, Pacific leaders endorsed the Pacific Regional Framework on Climate Mobility, the first regional document to formally acknowledge climate-related migration and commit states to cooperate on safe and dignified pathways.

Dr Yates said New Zealand was “furiously involved” in shaping the framework.

“The framework is the first time, put down on paper, that people are migrating because of climate-related reasons,” she said.

However, the document is non-binding.

“It means our government is ready to take this seriously. But I wouldn’t say they are taking this seriously, yet.”

She added a dedicated, rights-based climate mobility visa is needed that can account for a wide-range of people, including those with disabilities and others disproportionately affected.

RNZ Pacific approached the Immigration Minister Erica Stanford’s office for comment on whether New Zealand immigration law does explicitly recognise climate change or climate-induced displacement as grounds for special protection or a dedicated visa category.

We were advised Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters was the appropriate person to comment on the issue.

However, a spokesperson for Peters told RNZ Pacific the specific issue “would be a question for the Minister of Immigration, or the Climate Change Minister”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new legal framework to support climate-displaced people and guarantee their human rights is being served up ahead of COP28.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference opens tomorrow and is being held in the fossil fuel giant United Arab Emirates (UAE) from November 30 to December 12.

The human rights advocacy centre — the International Centre for Advocates Against Discrimination (ICAAD) — wants to ensure climate frontline communities will not be neglected.

The UN is estimating there could be 1.2 billion climate-displaced people by 2050.

ICAAD and partners are calling for climate mobility justice to feature on the agenda of COP28.

The Human Rights Centre wants discussions around how to expand protections for climate-displaced persons to ensure their dignity is upheld now and in the future.

In the Pacific, many islands could become uninhabitable in the coming decades due to sea level rise, yet there is no legal clarity on how, or if, these communities will be protected.

ICAAD director and facilitator Erin Thomas said more than 40 indigenous and climate activists and researchers from eight Pacific Island countries were advocating for COP28.

‘Right to life of dignity’
“This is part of our right to life of dignity project which we have been working on over a number of years,” she said.

“But one of the thornier issues that the international community has yet to respond to effectively is protecting those who are displaced across borders.”

The group warned that climate change is already creating human rights abuses, especially for those already migrating without access to dignified migration pathways.

At the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) annual meeting in Rarotonga two weeks ago, regional leaders noted that more than 50,000 Pacific people were displaced due to climate and disaster related events annually.

The leaders endorsed a Pacific regional framework on climate mobility to “provide practical guidance to governments planning for and managing climate mobility”.

They also called on development partners to “provide substantially greateer levels of climate finance, technology and capacity to accelerate decarbonisation of the Blue Pacific”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Vanuatu Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau says Pacific security is about the security of the Pacific peoples and their way of life as identified by Forum leaders in the Boe Declaration.

Kalsakau said this reaffirmed climate change as the single greatest threat to regional security.

The PM was speaking at the opening of the Pacific Fusion headquarters in Port Vila on Tuesday, alongside Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

He said Vanuatu, with the world’s first climate change refugees with the relocation in 2005 of 100 villagers in Torba Province, “will always consider climate change its top priority”.

He said climate change is real, an existential threat, impinging on the security and stability of all nations.

“We do not have to look too far to see how the increased intensity of climate change-induced tropical cyclones wreak havoc on the daily lives and livelihoods of our people and set us back years in our development,” said Kalsakau.

He said Vanuatu’s Pacific brothers also faced human security challenges caused by the nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands (by the US), Mororoa Atoll (France) and Australia (United Kingdom).

‘Our reefs are dying’
“With the effects of global warming and nuclear testing, our ocean is getting warmer, our reefs are dying and fishes are now very scarce.

“Our children and grandchildren are bound to never experience what we’ve enjoyed in our childhood.

“The maintenance and sustenance of our marine resources must be the top priority of our Pacific leaders.”

Kalsakau said there were other pressing issues such as the Fukushima nuclear waste water discharge and AUKUS.

“I say again that Pacific security is about the security of our Pacific peoples and way of life.

“This is why Vanuatu stood alongside our Pacific brothers and sisters to produce the Rarotonga Treaty. Which brings me to today’s very special occasion.

“The Pacific Fusion Centre is guided by the regional security priorities identified by the Boe Declaration and supports regional decision-making on these shared security priorities,” he said.

The centre, which is funded by Australia and to be run in collaboration with Pacific Forum member states, will aim to provide training and analysis on regional security issues.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Climate Change is calling on the international community to take responsibility for a food security crisis in the Carteret Islands, and some of the other remote atolls of Bougainville.

Minister Wera Mori recently returned from a fact finding mission to the region and he was “horrified” by what he saw.

He said the PNG government was taking steps to ensure that food could be grown elsewhere, and supplies to those who need them were maintained.

But he said that in the long term, industrialised nations, which he accused of causing the climate change related crisis in the first place, needed to step in and assist with measures to prevent the islands from slipping any further under the waves.

“One of the big islands, part of it has been covered by the sea, so basically now instead of one island, you have two,” Mori told ABC’s Pacific Beat.

“Parts of Bougainville, south-east of Solomon Islands … we have coastlines that have been washed away.”

Republished from ABC Pacific Beat.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The past five years have been the hottest on record in Asia and the Pacific. Unprecedented heatwaves have swept across our region, cascading into slow onset disasters such as drought. Yet heat is only part of the picture. Tropical cyclones have struck new, unprepared parts of our region and devastatingly frequent floods have ensued. In Iran, these affected 10 million people this year and displaced 500,000 of which half were children. Bangladesh is experiencing its fourth wave of flooding in 2019. Last year, the state of Kerala in India faced the worst floods in a century.

This is the new climate reality in Asia and the Pacific. The scale of forecast economic losses for the region is sobering. Including slow-onset disasters, average annualised losses until 2030 are set to quadruple to about $675 billion compared to previous estimates. This represents 2.4 percent of the region’s GDP. Economic losses of such magnitude will undermine both economic growth and our region’s efforts to reduce poverty and inequality, keeping children out of schools and adults of work. Basic health services will be undermined, crops destroyed and food security jeopardised. If we do not act now, Asia-Pacific’s poorest communities will be among the worst affected.

Four areas of Asia and the Pacific are particularly impacted, hotspots which combine vulnerability to climate change, poverty and disaster risk. In transboundary river basins in South and South-East Asia such as the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin, floods alternate with prolonged droughts. In South-East Asia and East and North-East Asia earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides threaten poor populations in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Intensifying sand and dust storms are blighting East, Central and South-west Asia. Vulnerable populations in Pacific Small Islands Developing States are five times more at risk of disasters than a person in South and South-East Asia. Many countries’ sustainable development prospects are now directly dependent on their exposure to natural disasters and their ability to build resilience.

Yet this vicious cycle between poverty, inequalities and disasters is not inevitable. It can be broken if an integrated approach is taken to investing in social and disaster resilience policies. As disasters disproportionately affect the poor, building resilience must include investment in social protection as the most effective means of reducing poverty. Conditional cash transfer systems can be particularly effective as was shown in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Increasing pre-arranged risk finance and climate risk insurance is also crucial. While investments needed are significant, in most countries these are equivalent to less than half the costs forecast to result from natural disasters.

The use of technological innovations to protect the region from natural disasters must go hand in hand with these investments. Big data reveal patterns and associations between complex disaster risks and predict extreme weather and slow onset disasters to improve the readiness of our economies and our societies. In countries affected by typhoons, big data applications can make early warning systems stronger and can contribute to saving lives and reducing damage. China and India are leading the way in using technology to warn people of impending disasters, make their infrastructure more resilient and deliver targeted assistance to affected farmers and citizens.

Asia and the Pacific can learn from this best practice and multilateral cooperation is the way to give scale to our region’s disaster resilience effort. With this ambition in mind, representatives from countries across the region are meeting in Bangkok this week at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to explore regional responses to natural disasters. Their focus will include strengthening Asia-Pacific’s Disaster Resilience Network and capitalising on innovative technology applications for the benefit of the broader region. This is our opportunity to replicate successes, accelerate drought mitigation strategies and develop a regional sand and dust storm alert system. I hope the region can seize it to protect vulnerable communities from disaster risk in every corner of Asia and the Pacific.

Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2018/10/03/pacific-storytelling-with-a-focus-on-the-ignored-and-untold-issues/ Wed, 03 Oct 2018 08:01:26 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2018/10/03/pacific-storytelling-with-a-focus-on-the-ignored-and-untold-issues/ ]]> A video made by an AUT screen production graduate, Sasya Wreksono, marking the 10th anniversary of the Pacific Media Centre. Video: PMC

PROFILE: By Craig Major of AUT News

​Based at Auckland University of Technology, the Pacific Media Centre is a small team dedicated to telling stories from across the Pacific that you won’t read anywhere else.

Established in 2007 by Professor David Robie in AUT’s School of Communication Studies, the centre focuses on postgraduate research projects and publications that impact on indigenous communities across the Pacific.

“We’re a small team, but the scope of what we cover is phenomenal,” Dr Robie explains. “As researchers and reporters, we look at the repercussions that big issues like climate change, human rights violations and press freedom have on these small communities in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The team are active publishers, managing several platforms including the Pacific Media Watch and Asia Pacific Report news websites, the half-yearly academic research journal Pacific Journalism Review and its companion Pacific Journalism Monographs, the blog Niusblog and Toktok, a quarterly newsletter.

The centre has also secured a media partnership with Radio New Zealand – the first content-sharing arrangement between a New Zealand university and a news organisation – and hosts the weekly Southern Cross radio programme on 95bFM.

Dr Robie, along with Advisory Board chair Associate Professor Camille Nakhid, sees the centre as having a strong advocacy role across the Pacific and further afield.

“I think it is a real strength of the PMC that the team can find issues in the Pacific that just aren’t covered in the mainstream New Zealand media, then explore them and report on them with authority and conviction,” Dr Robie says.

Beyond a travel brochure
“The team is skilled in identifying issues that are beyond the scope of what the public sees in a travel brochure.”

Dr Nakhid echoes this sentiment. “New Zealand’s media can be very insular when reporting on what is happening in the Pacific – even though there is so much happening right outside our doorstep.”

Internally the team takes a cross-discipline approach, working closely with students and staff in the School of Communication Studies (particularly Te Ara Motuhenga, the documentary collective) and the School of Social Sciences.

The centre also has international partnerships, such as with the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, and maintains close ties to Pacific communities based in New Zealand – and are sure to collaborate with community groups for events and seminars.

“Pacific Media Centre organised a seminar about the refugee situation in Myanmar recently,” recalls publications designer Del Abcede. “Through talking to the Burmese citizens that we had invited, we discovered a range of issues that only came to light in the mainstream after the Myanmar election.”

PMC reporting staff – mostly postgraduate students – are encouraged to uncover and explore the issues that interest them.

“Working with the PMC has been very illuminating,” says Sri Krishnamurthi, a postgraduate student who has covered Fiji-based news for PMC, and has interviewed two of the three party heads hoping to win Fiji’s general election next month.

“I have a background in communications and journalism, but doing this kind of reporting has been a real eye-opener,” says Krishnamurthi, a Fiji-born journalist who worked with the NZ Press Association for 17 years.

Film festival screening
And just this week two students from the centre, Hele Ikimotu and Blessen Tom, have had their Bearing Witness climate change documentary, Banabans of Rabi, accepted for screening at the 2018 Nuku’alofa Film Festival.

The trailer of Banabans of Rabi, a short documentary on climate change accepted by the 2018 Nuku’alofa Film Festival. Video: BOR

The freedom to pursue stories in the region is an opportunity for Dr Robie and the team.

“Students that work with us learn so much – and there really is no underestimation of their abilities,” Dr Robie said.

“Not only that, it promotes media and journalism as a viable career path for Pacific students, and leads to opportunities for international journalism projects.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Hele Ikimotu with visuals by Blessen Tom

Vunidogoloa was the first village in Fiji to be relocated – barely three years ago – due to sea level rise.

The village was in the Cakaudrove province and had backyard views of beautiful Natewa Bay on Vanua Levu Island.

The relaxing life for these villagers was however dampened by the impact of sea level rise.

Flooding was common for the villagers and so they needed to be relocated.

Their new village is 2 kilometres inland and was renamed by the villagers as Kenani (“Promised Land”).

The whole village of Vunidogoloa (pop. 130) moved to their new settlement in January 2014 and now have solar lighting.

We stopped by the old “ghost” village to see where the villagers once lived and also took some photos of where they are now settled.

From Vunidogoloa to Kenani

1. Vunidogoloa’s “front door” to Natewa Bay. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

2. Vunidogoloa … now a ghost village. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

3. Vunidogoloa … an abandoned home. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

4. Vunidogoloa … overgrown. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

5. “Slow” … the “promised land” village coming up. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

6. Kenani … the new village. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

7. Kenani Village. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

8. The aid project kudos board. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

9. Hillside Kenani.

10. More Kenani houses. Image: Blessen Tom/Bearing Witness

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

At least 23 million people were displaced by extreme weather as a result of climate change.

“If we act now in terms of climate change action, … it means we support for people to stay in their homes. … Let’s not make migration a last resort, a tragedy,” says Dina Ionesco, the head of migration, environment and climate change at the International Organisation for Migration.

Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: We are broadcasting live from the U.N. climate summit in Bonn.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: This year is known as the first “Islands COP,” with Fiji presiding over this year’s summit. The event itself is being held here in Bonn because of the logistical challenges of hosting thousands of people in Fiji at the start of the South Pacific cyclone season. Researchers here at Bonn are warning that Pacific Islanders may be among the first to be forced to migrate due to climate change, as sea level rise is threatening to make whole islands uninhabitable.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we got a chance to speak with Pacific Islanders who rolled out a red carpet to greet German Chancellor Angela Merkel here at the COP23. The massive banner that went along the floor to the plenary read “Keep it in the ground.” Among those who rolled it out were Pacific warriors Joseph-Zane Sikulu of Tonga and Lusia Feagaiga, a delegate from Samoa. I asked them how climate change is affecting their islands.

LUSIA FEAGAIGA: With the sea levels rising, a lot of our lower-lying atoll countries are being affected. I mean, Marshall Islands is two meters above sea level; Tuvalu, probably three. And once king tides come in, it’s most likely that their villages will be flooded with saltwater because of the rising sea levels. Even in Samoa, places where families, their ancestral homes used to be on the shore, now have to be moved further inland because of the rising sea level. So, it’s affecting way of life. It’s affecting crops and indigenous root crops, because of saltwater intrusion, as well as fresh drinking supplies, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: But island nations are not the only places where climate change is threatening to force people from their homes. Last year, around the world, at least 23 million people were displaced by extreme weather.

For more, we’re joined by Dina Ionesco, the head of migration, environment and climate change at the International Organisation for Migration.

So you just heard people from Tonga and Samoa. What do they face? What is a climate change migrant or climate change refugee?

DINA IONESCO: Well, climate change migration means that the impacts of climate change affect so much the lives of people that they can’t stay in their homes. And very often also, climate change connects to other issues—poverty, for instance, or demographic issues or conflict. And it makes it even more difficult for people to remain. So, climate migration means that people have to move, but also sometimes choose to move, because their environment is degrading. And it can mean, as you said, sudden onset, big storms, floods. There, it’s easier to count who moved because of those causes. But it means also the slow onset, like desertification, sea level rise, land loss. So it’s very complex, many different issues. But the bottom line is that we maybe do not want these people to be forced to move because of climate change. So, this was why we are here.

Climate refugees
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, a few years ago, a man from the island of Kiribati sparked a global debate because he became the first person ever to seek asylum, for him and his family, as climate refugees. So could you tell us about his case and what’s happened with people seeking asylum for climate-related issues?

DINA IONESCO: So, we have to realise that the majority of people who move because of climate change, they move internally. They move within borders. So that means they are under the responsibility of their own states. They are not seeking a climate refugee status, because their own state has to take care of them and respect their human rights. There are some cases—we had the case for these small islands or for Haiti after the earthquake—where people move to across borders, maybe to Brazil or to the US or just across within the same island. And then there’s the question: What right do they have to move, to stay? And there, there are also possibilities to give them a humanitarian visa or a temporary protection that can allow them to stay. You can’t be a refugee for the moment. Maybe it will be, but we don’t know that. It’s very difficult to create a status as a refugee for climate change.

AMY GOODMAN: But what do you think it’s most important for the world to know right now about what the world is doing about climate migrants?

DINA IONESCO: I think one key thing to realize is that if we act now in terms of climate change action, if we take care of the Earth now, it means we support for people to stay in their homes, that they are not forced to migrate. So that’s one key message we have to say. Invest in climate action. It gives people a choice whether to go. They have the right to move if they want to move, but let’s not make migration a last resort, a tragedy, when it’s too late, when there’s nothing else.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dina Ionesco, we thank you so much.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz