COP18 (01/12/12) – Rezaul Karim Chowdhury, Chief Moderator for the Equity and Justice Working Group talks about the issue of climate migrants. He says scientists have said that there could be 300 million climate migrants by 2050.

He describes how Bangladesh will be the worst impacted country where he says one in seven people could be climate migrants by 2050. He says this is because many people have to leave the climate hotspots in the country’s coastal regions.

He stresses that poor people are not responsible for the emissions and that the life of migrants must be considered in view of the Human Rights Framework – people have the right to move and the right to live.

He stresses that poor countries need money to help potential climate migrants to be able to stay within their own communities and says climate migration must be considered within the discussions around the Adaptation Fund.

He says work was made in Cancun to make climate migrants an issue for discussions. He shows 16 postcards he has brought to the conference, which share the stories of climate migrants in Bangladesh. He warns that there is no Planet B and that the world will have to re-think its immigration law and labour movement laws in the light of climate migrants.