Thalif Deen in IPS: An international conference on small island developing states (SIDS), scheduled to take place in Samoa next week, will bypass a politically sensitive issue: a proposal to create a new category of “environmental refugees” fleeing tiny island nations threatened by rising seas. “It’s not on the final declaration called the outcome document,” a SIDS diplomat told IPS.The rich countries that neighbour small island states are not in favour of a flood of refugees inundating them, he added. Such a proposal also involves an amendment to the 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees, making it even more divisive.
The outcome document, already agreed upon at a U.N. Preparatory Committee meeting last month, will be adopted at the Sep. 1-4 meeting in the Samoan capital of Apia.
Sara Shaw, climate justice and energy coordinator at Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), told IPS, “We believe that climate refugees have a legitimate claim for asylum and should be recognised under the U.N. refugee convention and offered international protection.”
Unfortunately, she said, the very developed nations responsible for the vast majority of the climate-changing gases present in the atmosphere today are those refusing to extend the refugee convention to include climate refugees. “Worse still, they are trying to weaken existing international protection for refugees,” Shaw added....
A NASA image of Aneityum, Vanuatu
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