Humanitarian visa proposed for climate change refugees dead in the water

18:29, Aug 29 2018
Children jump off a shipwreck into a lagoon in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The small South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is striving to mitigate the effects of climate change: rising sea levels of 5mm per year since 1993, well above the global average, are damaging vital crops and causing flooding in the low lying nation at high tides. (file photo)
FIONA GOODALL/GETTY
Children jump off a shipwreck into a lagoon in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The small South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is striving to mitigate the effects of climate change: rising sea levels of 5mm per year since 1993, well above the global average, are damaging vital crops and causing flooding in the low lying nation at high tides. (file photo)

A proposed "experimental" visa for climate change refugees is dead in the water, with the idea gaining little traction among Government officials and Pacific leaders. 

Minister for Climate Change James Shaw announced the Government would consider a special visa for Pacific peoples displaced by climate change in October 2017, after a tribunal rejected refugee status for two Tuvalu families. 

The families argued rising seas would make their lives unsustainable, but climate change is not a recognised ground for refugee status under the UN Refugee Convention.

Minister for Immigration Iain Lees-Galloway said on Friday that Pacific peoples have expressed desire to continue to live in their own countries, and current work is primarily focussed on mitigating the impacts of climate change.

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Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the Government would consider an "experimental" humanitarian visa category as "a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands".
CHRIS SKELTON/STUFF
Climate Change Minister James Shaw said the Government would consider an "experimental" humanitarian visa category as "a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands".

"Responses to the impacts of climate change would likely be considered as part of future discussions on Pacific immigration policies, but there is no specific plan for an 'experimental visa' at this stage," Lees-Galloway said.

Pacific leaders made clear the view in the Niue Declaration on Climate Change in 2008.

Shaw, who was overseas and unavailable for comment, told RNZ in October the Government would consider an "experimental" humanitarian visa category as "a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands".

Green Party immigration spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said the proposal remained Green Party policy, but required a different approach then initially considered.
ROSS GIBLIN/STUFF
Green Party immigration spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman said the proposal remained Green Party policy, but required a different approach then initially considered.

Green Party immigration spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman​ said it was still party policy, but research on the ground showed a visa was likely unsuitable to address climate migration.

Among issues to consider were self-dettermination for Pacific communities, which warranted a collective solution rather than an individualised visa approach.

"The climate migration issue looks like it's much broader than us coming up with a visa ... Tuvaluans want to continue to be Tuvaluans.

"That became apparent fairly quickly when we started looking into it."

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) advised ministers in May that if climate migration becomes necessary, it should be a planned, coordinated process that reflects the resilience of Pacific peoples.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters has proposed a regional dialogue be held on climate migration at the Pacific Islands Forum in Tuvalu in 2019, a Mfat spokesperson said.

The hoped regional dialogue will again be raised at a leaders meeting in Nauru next week. 

New Zealand signed the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration in July, pushing to have climate change recognised as a root cause for migration during two years of negotiations.

Climate change migration has rarely been recognised in inter-government documents before this, the spokesperson said.

Small island nations face a "very high risk" of coastal inundation and loss of livelihoods are expected by 2080, with only 2 degrees of warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2014.

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