Climate Change and migration: How well are we really doing?
Here is Episode 6 of The Fading Causes Podcast.
Against the backdrop of devastating floods in Asia and fires in Europe, my timely guest is Ovais Sarmad, latterly the Deputy Executive Director of the secretariat of UN Climate Change (UNFCC). Despite mounting disasters, he remains a stubborn optimist. Is he deluded or does he know something we don’t?
Why is that high officials – reserved and boring in office (one reason I generally don’t bother interviewing them) – wax lyrical (almost) when unshackled? Anyway, I am glad of that as Ovais reflects freely on his experiences from numerous climate negotiations in the far-too-many Conferences of Parties (COP). Have these become hopelessly expensive and far too big to succeed? And is it too simplistic to say that the 2015 Paris Agreement is dead? Is accountability for carbon reduction pledges by member states ever going to be possible? And are climate justice sloganeers wasting their breath?
Our conversation turns to the toxic topic of migration, as Ovais also served many decades at IOM – UN Migration including as Chief of Staff. Should UN reform merge UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency and IOM?
Of course, that will never happen but provides a peg to debate more important issues. Such as our two-tier human rights system where the rights of conflict-fleeing refugees are worth more than those escaping poverty and climate disasters. But both get exploited by human traffickers – the most lucrative evil of our current age. But then, why don’t or can’t states better manage irregular migration when all knowledge and tools are there?
Migration is almost unique among global issues in not having its own binding international co-operation agreement. Will this come when demographically-challenged parts of the world realise that migration is their saviour?
