New Zealand Ready For Pacific Climate Change Exiles

I suppose there are worse places to call home. Stuff New Zealand quotes New Zealand's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, as offering to take migrants from the Pacific, should climate change lead them to flee their home islands. Ms. Clark says policies such as the New Zealand regional seasonal work scheme have built a solid base for assistance, which could be easily adapted to take Pacific refugees if sea levels rise.

While climate change may seem an abstract threat to many parts of the world, low lying Pacific coral reef islands and atolls will be the first locations to face the consequences of a warming world. Speaking on a lecture tour in Europe, Prime Minister Clark made several references to the challenges posed by climate change. She indicated, for example, that Radio Australia recently reported some climate change models predict low lying island states such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and Tokelau could be submerged within 20 years if global temperatures continue to rise.

Personally, I think the major CO2 producing yet slow-to-climate-change-action nations like the US should carry the burden of providing sanctuary to those people whose lives and cultures are disrupted from our lack of vision.