New Zealand could become the world’s first country to recognize climate change as an official reason to seek asylum, a government minister said in an interview on Tuesday. Kiribati’s program was created on the assumption that large multinational corporations may hold far more lobbying powers to change visa regulations than poor nations affected by climate change. This strategy may work for some smaller islands, but not all climate refugees can become highly-skilled workers. Others factors, apart from climate change, played into the court’s 2014 decision to allow the family to stay, as well. Its authors concluded that climate change is essentially a “threat multiplier” for all global health hazards, with manifestations that will be “unequivocal and potentially irreversible.”

Source: National Post October 31, 2017 16:18 UTC