Swedish Green Party candidate for the European Parliament Pär Holmgren has demanded the European Union do more to distribute so-called climate refugees from Africa and the Middle East.

Holmgren, who is running to become an MEP next month and is second on the party list, has said he wants to make climate change his focal issue if he wins a seat.

“Everything that has to do with ecological sustainability and social sustainability is connected. If we do not succeed in this transition to a sustainable society, where the climate issue and biodiversity and other issues are important, then there will be even greater stress on our societies,” Holmgren said in an interview with Europa Portalen.

Holmgren believes responding to climate change also involves welcoming migrants from the Middle East and parts of Africa that he claims could become uninhabitable.

According to the green politician, the European Union should be doing more to not only distribute migrants from regions affected by climate change but also combat poverty.

“Unfortunately, because of the big players today, we are on the road to three degrees of warming in 2100. And somewhere along the way, much of Africa and the Middle East will actually become more or less uninhabitable,” he said.

Recent opinion polls have shown the Greens struggling in Sweden with a poll from April 13th showing the party with only four per cent of the vote, the threshold for entering the European Parliament.

The Swedish Greens have been known to make controversial remarks in the past, such as when Lars Ahlfors, chairman of the local Greens in the town of Eslöv, said, “There is another party that wants to persuade immigrants to relocate. We think that if you do not enjoy multiculturalism, there should be an opportunity to give a helping hand to move.”

The remarks, suggesting that Swedes who do not like multiculturalism should pack up and leave, led to accusations of totalitarianism by Social Democrat politician Henrik Månsson.

Green Party candidate Alice Bah Kuhnke, who heads the party’s EU election list, has also been criticised for suggesting in 2017 that Islamic State radicals should be welcomed back to Sweden and helped to reintegrate into society.