Pacific Scoop:

Report – By Pacific Media Watch

New Zealand’s ruling party will not allow Pacific Islanders affected by climate change to seek refuge if it wins next month’s election.

Speaking at “The Great Climate Voter Debate” held in Auckland last night, New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser of the National Party, said the government had helped Pacific Island states with renewable energy and climate change adaptation projects.

“I am nowhere near convinced that we should start to divert what level of capacity we have to help refugees,” added Groser, who is also the Climate Change Minister.

He was roundly criticised by John Minto of the Mana Party, who said his party supported a change to the United Nations definition of “refugee” so that those affected by climate change would be able to seek refuge in other countries.

“We are a Pacific country and we do have responsibility to places like Kiribati,” Minto said.

The National-led government was “not doing anything to stop New Zealand’s emissions” and was also not doing anything to support the Pacific Islanders who were most affected by New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, said Minto, describing National’s policy on climate change as a “double negative”.

Russel Norman, Green Party co-leader, said his party also wanted the UN definition to change so that those forced to move because of climate change could claim refugee status.

Rising sea levels

The Green Party would ensure that New Zealand accepted “climate change refugees” because the relocation of people in islands under threat from rising sea levels needed to start immediately.

The New Zealand First candidate said her party was aware of the plight of Pacific Islanders in Kiribati and Tuvalu, where the ocean was rising fast and would welcome the opportunity to discuss further the relocation of those affected.

Māori Party representative Nancy Tuaine said her party was “first and foremost committed to helping you [Pacific Islanders] stay on your land but if you need to come here we should be supporting you first and foremost as our Pacific neighbours”.

At the debate, both National and the Labour Party said they did not agree with a carbon tax, which was supported by the Green party and the Mana.

Radio New Zealand reported that Groser “came in for the strongest criticism from the near 300-strong crowd” at the debate, which attracted a studio audience of more than 300 people, another 500 at live screening venues nationwide and 13,000 online viewers.

The Climate Voter initiative is a non-partisan alliance of six leading New Zealand organisations: Forest and Bird, 350 Aotearoa, Greenpeace, Generation Zero, Oxfam New Zealand and WWF New Zealand. The alliance aims to have 70,000 New Zealanders sign up as “Climate Voters” before election day on September 20.

So far, more than 57,000 people have signed up to pressure politicians to commit to concrete action on climate change.

Only one family of “climate change refugees” have won the right to stay in New Zealand – but their case won’t set a precedent because their climate change asylum application was rejected, but they won an appeal on humanitarian grounds based on family ties to New Zealand.

Source: Pacific Media Watch 8941