International campaign on climate refugee rights launched at UN talks

By: G M Mourtoza on December 14th, 2009

COPENHAGEN–Civil society groups Friday launched an International Campaign on Climate Change Refugees’ Rights on the sidelines of climate talks here in the Danish capital.

The social movement groups from Asia, Africa and Latin America joined are demanding the rights of millions of people being displaced by climate change.

At the launching of the campaign, Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, executive director of VOICE, a Bangladesh-based NGO, said, “Global civil society groups should come forward to build a wider constituency to claim the justice and rights of the climate-induced refugees.”

Mr Ahmed also demanded that “a legal safeguard protocol should be in place to ensure the political, social, cultural and economic rights of the climate refugees by the international community.”

Goldman Prize Winner and the Executive Director of Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) Rizwana Hasan was also present at the launch. She also stressed the need for a legal institutional framework for the victims of climate change.

Dr Ahasan Uddin, one of the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from Bangladesh demanded a review of the Geneva Convention on Refugees of 1951 in light of climate change.

Demanding the recognition of climate debt, Lidy Nacpil from Jublee South-Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) said “We are not asking assistance or aid butreparations from the industrialized countries for the over extraction and consumption of natural resources.”

Demba Moussa Dembele, the Chair of the LDC Watch from Senegal, and a member of the international committee of the campaign said, “We don’t want climate change but system change.” He said the need of the hour is a new type of relationship between the North and the South to combat  climate change and ensure rights and justice for climate refugees.

The International Campaign on Climate Refugees’ Rights (ICCR) is a global independent association aiming at asserting and realizing the rights and ensuring justice to climate-induced displaced victims—climate refugees. Civil society groups from Asia, Africa, Latin and Central America consisting of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Senegal, Uganda, EL Salvador etc, are the members of this campaign while currently the secretariat is based in Dhaka, Bangladesh.