The scaremongers say its bye-bye for Bangladesh and Bangkok! And, it’s all the fault of Australia’s unwelcoming attitude toward third-worlders wishing to swamp their country.
For previous posts on “Climate refugees” including more on the legal case that just went down in flames, go here.
Here is the news at Independent Australia. Truth be told a huge battle rages behind the scenes between the environmental industrial complex and the human rights industrial complex over the UN Convention on Refugees which focuses on “persecution” for defining what is a refugee or asylum seeker.
The New Zealand courts have denied granting asylum to a Kiribati climate refugee, but that isn’t going to stop the problem. Deputy editor Sandi Keane reports.
THIS WEEK, the High Court of New Zealand delivered a blow to a largely ignored asylum seeker problem that has been quietly bleeding and threatening to hemorrhage into a full-scale global catastrophe within two or three decades.
A 37-year-old man from the tiny, obscure nation of Kiribati, Ioane Teitiota, stood to make history as the world’s first climate refugee. He argued that global warming is a form of persecution and that those displaced by its effects should be recognized under the UN’s Refugee Convention. However, in his judgment, Justice John Priestley said it was not the High Court’s place to alter the scope of the Refugee Convention by granting Mr Teitiota’s leave for appeal.
The judge said the enormity and scale of the problem was a fundamental reason for his decision:
“On a broad level, were they to succeed and be adopted in other jurisdictions, at a stroke, millions of people who are facing medium-term economic deprivation, or the immediate consequences of natural disasters or warfare, or indeed presumptive hardships caused by climate change, would be entitled to protection under the Refugee Convention.”
Although he has lived in New Zealand since 2007, the government has refused Mr Teitiota and his family asylum based on the current convention which was drawn up more than 50 years ago, before rising seas started threatening the 33 low-lying equatorial islands and atolls that make up the tiny nation, just under 4,000 kilometres north-east of Brisbane.
Read the remainder of the story if you wish to learn about Bangladesh and Bangkok dropping off the map someday and how mean Australia is for not letting them all come live there!
As always I preface a report from RRW with the caveat that we are a small blog with a very narrow focus, so we continue to be amazed by how many people are interested in this rather arcane subject.