11th November Marrakech : Today in Marrakech Climate Conference in conference room Bering global civil society leaders in seminar title “Climate Displacement : Protecting and Promoting Rights of the Climate Migrants” urged for new political policy regimes to protect and promote the human rights of climate induced displaced people. The side event seminar was jointly organized by Action Aid (AA) International, Asia People Movement of Debt and Development (APMDD) , Climate Action Network South Asia (CAN South Asia) , Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust (COAST), Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), was moderated by Rezaul Karim Chowdhury COAST and Lidy Nacpil APMDD. Presentation panel speakers of the seminar was Sanjay Vashist CAN South Asia, Azeb Girmi LDC Watch, Rita Uwaka FOEI East Africa, Harjeet Singh Action Aid, Nina M Birkeland NRC. The respondent panel speakers was Dr Kamal Uddin Ahmed Secretary Ministry of Environment and Forest of Bangladesh, Atle Soleberg of Platform on Disaster Displacement (PDD) an state lead initiative, Marine Frank of UNHCR (United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees), Benjamin Schechter of United Nations Human Rights (UNHR), and Asad Rehman of EoEI.
Sanjay Vashist the Director CAN South Asia presented key findings of a study recently done by them jointly with Action Aid International, they found increasing nature of climate displacement and migration in South Asia, impact on women is severe, which is creating tensions among the community and imbalance competition in already scarce basic services. Rita Uwaka EOEI East Africa given references of several studies from Afirca how the displacement is increasing and the situation is also complicated by the displacements due to development projects. Azeb Girmi LDC Watch from Ethiopia express her dismay on inaction of UNFCCC process on the issue that it was not explicit in Paris Agreement, she demanded new protocol to protect the climate migrants with a protocol like 1951 UN Refugee convention. Harjeet Singh of AA said that states especially most vulnerable countries must give effort to include the issue in Warsaw Implementation Mechanism (WIM) in reference to Doha decision.
Dr Kamal Secretary from Bangladesh said, although Bangladesh is trying best to protect the climate displacement, but the problem is so huge especially for 39 million coastal populations, its require global support to protect their human rights. Nina M Birkeland of NRC said that the responsibility of climate displacement should not only be laid with WIM only, it should be an important issue in UNFCCC process too. She urged for policy coherence on the issues with SDGs, Sendai Frame Work, UN Global compact on refugee and migration and WHS (World Humanitarian Summit) process. Atle Solebarg of PDD mentioned that PDD has identified set of tools on protection measures in respect of climate displacement in cross boarder level, states can use it. Marine Frank of UNHCR said that UNHCR acknowledge the issue and working with other agencies. Benjamin Schechter of UNHR said that, international community response is not enough in this regard, there must be a policy regime. Asad Rehman of FOEI said that climate migrants deserve political solution.
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