The new category would make official the Green party’s pre-election policy which promised 100 visas for those affected by climate change.
As part of the new Labour-led coalition government, the Green party leader James Shaw was given the role of climate change minister.
He told Radio New Zealand on Tuesday that “an experimental humanitarian visa category” could be implemented for people from the Pacific who are displaced by rising seas resulting from climate change.
“It is a piece of work that we intend to do in partnership with the Pacific islands,” Shaw said.
Before the election, the Greens also proposed increasing New Zealand’s overall refugee quota from 750 each year to 4,000 places over six years.
Shaw’s announcement comes after the New Zealand immigration and protection tribunal rejected two families from Tuvalu who applied to become refugees in New Zealand due to the impact of climate change.
The families argued rising sea levels, lack of access to clean and sanitary drinking water and Tuvalu’s high unemployment rate as reasons for seeking asylum.
The tribunal ruled they did not risk being persecuted by race, religion, nationality or by membership of a political or religious group under the 1951 refugee convention.
International environmental law expert Associate Professor Alberto Costi, of Victoria University, told the Guardian that the current convention could not accommodate environmental refugees. “The conditions are pretty strict and really apply to persecution. These people who arrive here hoping to seek asylum on environmental grounds are bound to be sent back to their home countries.”
In 2014 Ioane Teitiota, from Kiribati, made headlines after he applied in New Zealand to become the world’s first climate change refugee “on the basis of changes to his environment in Kiribati caused by sea level rise associated with climate change”.
Costi acknowledged Shaw’s proposal would allow that gap in the refugee convention to be filled but said the problem would be legally determining whether an environmental migrant was still able to live in their home country.
“I have sympathy but legally it creates a big debate. There needs to be clear guidelines.”
Costi said there would be a difference in an application from someone from Tarawa in Kiribati, where conditions are obviously worsening every year, to those whose countries are only affected seasonally.
“It’s an idea to be explored. I would welcome more clarity.”
South Korea and China move to normalize relations after THAAD dispute, WP, By Adam TaylorOctober 31 ,SEOUL— After a year of frosty diplomacy and economic pressure, South Korea and China announced Tuesday that they would put aside their differences out of a joint desire to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the two countries will resume normal relations. “The two sides attach great importance to the Korea-China relationship,” a statement from the ministry said.
In its own coordinated statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said the two nations would work to put their relationship back on a normal track “as soon as possible.”
China and South Korea have historically deep ties and over the past few decades had enjoyed a close relationship. However, that relationship was deeply damaged last July when Seoul agreed to install the U.S.-owned Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense platform on its land.
Though both Seoul and Washington argued the THAAD system had only defensive capabilities, Beijing was concerned about U.S. encirclement as well as the system’s sophisticated radar capabilities…….
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry acknowledged that the THAAD dispute had not been fully resolved. “The two sides agreed to engage in communication on THAAD-related issues about which the Chinese side is concerned through communication between their military authorities,” it said in a statement.
For its part, China confirmed Tuesday that its position on THAAD had not changed.
‘It’s heartbreaking to see how people fled and left all their belongings behind,’ says Bob Thissen
Jon Sharman A film team that specialises in surreptitiously accessing abandoned places has produced new footage showing the ghost towns left behind after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The trailer for “Abandoned Fukushima”, a new series by the Exploring the Unbeaten Path group, shows cobweb-covered supermarkets still filled with 2011-era products and classrooms where children’s bags and coats are still hanging.
The area was ravaged by a huge 9.0-magnitude earthquake in March of that year, which led to successive meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate and exclusion zones remain in place.
In the most dangerous areas access is restricted and people travelling through are not allowed to stay overnight.
But the film crew, led by Dutchman Bob Thissen, captured handheld and drone footage of the abandoned, irradiated areas while dodging police and constantly measuring contamination levels.
“It’s heartbreaking to see how people fled and left all their belongings behind,” Mr Thissen told RT. New episodes in the Fukushima series will be posted to YouTube.
Mr Thissen has previously made headlines for sneaking into the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and filming the rusting hulks of abandoned Buran space shuttles created by the Soviet Union.
SAUDI Arabia has announced plans to go nuclear and extract uranium domestically in order to develop its nuclear power programme amid rising tensions over North Korea’s missile ambitions. Express UK By WILL KIRBYA senior government official insisted the uranium would only be used for “peaceful purposes” to allow the oil-rich nation to diversify its energy supply.
It comes amid soaring tensions on the Korean peninsula as Kim Jong-un continues to build his nuclear arsenal threatening the outbreak of World War 3.
But Saudi Arabia insists its nuclear power plans are for peaceful purposes.
Saudi Arabia is working towards “self-sufficiency” in producing atomic fuel, a senior official explained, and extracting its own uranium makes economic sense before it starts building its first nuclear reactors next year.
OVER a month ago 122 nations took the decisive step to bring the world closer to the shared aspiration of a nuclear weapons-free world. The Philippines, along with the other Asean members, was proud to be part of the historic moment that saw the adoption of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear-Weapons—a landmark agreement that strengthens the nuclear disarmament architecture, fulfills the goal set out in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and delegitimizes once and for all the use of nuclear weapons.
The treaty represents the universalization of the Philippines’s fervent hope to put nuclear weapons firmly on the path of extinction, as set forth in its constitution and in the Treaty on the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone.
During the negotiations on the nuclear-weapons ban, the Philippines championed the inclusion of nuclear testing in the list of prohibited acts. It proposed language that would have committed States Parties to undertake not, and I quote, “to carry out any nuclear-weapon test explosion or any other form of nuclear-weapons testing.” However, as treaty negotiations go, the language proposal was watered down.
Be that as it may, what is important is that, under the nuclear- weapons-ban treaty, States Parties undertake not to conduct nuclear- weapons tests. With this, the act of nuclear-weapons testing is effectively declared illegal under international law.
The Philippines looks forward to signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on September 20 and usher in this new phase in our collective goal for the complete, irreversible and verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons.
The Philippines’s long-standing position against nuclear testing was first articul ated on the international stage when it signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996. It lent its voice to the growing clamor that recognized the detrimental effect of nuclear testing to the environment and its horrific consequences to humankind, where the suffering of victims can span generations.
Today, as in the years past, we call upon the remaining eight fellow UN member-states to finally heed the humanitarian imperative against nuclear tests and exercise their role as responsible citizens of the global community by finally signing onto the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), thereby ushering it into force. The forthcoming Conference on the CTBT is the most opportune time to do this. It happens to be on the same day when the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will be opened for signature.
The actions of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea constitute a flagrant violation of Security Council resolutions and pose a clear and present danger to international peace and security. Its actions demonstrate the urgent need for the CTBT to enter into force. While the Philippines, along with its fellow Asean members, condemn DPRK’s missile tests, it underlines the need to establish the international legal landscape that expressly delegitimizes its actions—if only to clearly and unequivocally articulate the collective desire of the community of nations to put a stop to them once and for all.
Government Scientist Blocked from Talking About Climate and Wildfires
Critics are accusing the Trump administration of stifling the dissemination of taxpayer-funded science, Scientific American , By Brittany Patterson, ClimateWire on October 31, 2017
A U.S. Forest Service scientist who was scheduled to talk about the role that climate change plays in wildfire conditions was denied approval to attend the conference featuring fire experts from around the country.
William Jolly, a research ecologist with the agency’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Missoula, Mont., was supposed to give a 30-minute presentation titled “Climate-Induced Variations in Global Severe Fire Weather Conditions” at the International Fire Congress in Orlando, Fla., next month. The event is hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology (AFE).
The travel denial follows reports last week that U.S. EPA blocked three scientists from making presentations at a conference in Rhode Island featuring climate change. Critics accused the Trump administration of stifling the dissemination of taxpayer-funded science……..
Jolly’s presentation was slated to be part of a special session exploring the connection between wildfire and climate change. It focuses on what scientists can learn about fire behavior in a warming future by looking at clues from the past, according to Anthony Westerling, a professor at the University of California who is moderating the session.
“It’s kind of weird that they would make it hard for a government scientist to take part in this because managing wildfire is a huge challenge logistically and financially on a vast array of federal lands,” he said. “These scientists, by participating in these kinds of society meetings, share their thoughts and hear other people’s thoughts, which is important because their work is supposed to form how these lands are managed and how we prepare for and adapt under climate change.”
Jolly is not the only scientist whose request was denied. No travel authorizations were given to researchers from the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Human Dimensions Science Program, according to AFE. That includes Karin Riley, a research ecologist who studies the relationship between climate and wildfire. Riley is vice president of AFE’s board of directors.
Three U.S. Geological Survey researchers who are scheduled to give presentations at the wildfire conference next month have been in limbo for months while their travel request is reviewed. All three scientists are slated to speak about climate change…….
The science shared at the Fire Congress draws on real world catastrophes. The United States is experiencing its most expensive fire season in history, with more than 8.8 million acres burned, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
Massive fires have rained chaos on communities in Montana and California, in part due to climate change increasing the number of fires and making them more severe. A 2015 report by the Forest Service found that modern fire seasons are 78 days longer and burn twice as many acres as they did in 1970. The agency predicted that the number of acres burned could double again by 2050 (Climatewire, Aug. 6, 2015)……. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/government-scientist-blocked-from-talking-about-climate-and-wildfires/
Imagine if the US flew what North Korea thought were nuclear-capable bombers up near its border, sporadically at first, then once per month. Then twice per month. In parallel, the US starts sending nuclear-capable submarines to port in South Korea. Then it issues warning orders to US Navy surface ships armed with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (the kind used against Syria in April) to program North Korean targets while patrolling in waters off North Korea’s eastern coast. Then it deploys fifth-generation stealth fighters to Japan in conjunction with the arrival of three aircraft carriers to the Pacific.
What do these military preparations look like?
Now imagine that the political rhetoric coinciding with all these military moves aims for nothing short of convincing a nuclear North Korea to unilaterally disarm itself. Imagine President Trump says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is ‘wasting his time’ with diplomacy. Then the National Security Adviser says the US cannot ‘accept and deter’ a nuclear North Korea because North Korea is ‘undeterrable’. President Trump, he says, will not accept North Korea having the capability to threaten the US with nuclear weapons. Consequently, he claims the US is ‘in a race to resolve this short of military action.’
How might you characterise this US policy? If effective strategy requires realistic aims, then America is in trouble. US officials have shown themselves to be pathologically overconfident in their ability to achieve political outcomes with military signals, and the outcome they’re trying to achieve is utterly unrealistic.
Imagine if the US flew what North Korea thought were nuclear-capable bombers up near its border, sporadically at first, then once per month. Then twice per month. In parallel, the US starts sending nuclear-capable submarines to port in South Korea. Then it issues warning orders to US Navy surface ships armed with Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (the kind used against Syria in April) to program North Korean targets while patrolling in waters off North Korea’s eastern coast. Then it deploys fifth-generation stealth fighters to Japan in conjunction with the arrival of three aircraft carriers to the Pacific.
How might you characterise this US policy?
Then imagine that Trump takes occasion to not only threaten North Korea, but to insult Kim Jong Un. Oh yes, and that South Korea leaks that it is preparing for ‘decapitation’ operations to eliminate Kim Jong Un. To top it all off, North Korea obtains US plans for fighting a war with the North, making it fully aware of how the US might preposition and deploy various forces in the region prior to conflict.
Taken together, how might all this appear to Kim Jong Un and his regime?
I’ve just described a situation of immense pressure and narrow (if any) maneuverability if either side misperceives the actions or statements of the other. What worries me, and most experts watching the situation, is that every single word and deed described above is real.
After a North Korea policy review earlier this year, the Trump Administration settled on an approach of ‘maximum pressure’ in pursuit of North Korean denuclearisation. Notwithstanding occasional mixed messaging, what I have just described above is what maximum pressure looks like. As it turns out, it’s basically the Obama Administration’s quixotic North Korea policy with an overlay of escalating threat-making.
That’s a problem. By 2016, virtually nobody in the community of experts thought North Korean denuclearisation was possible short of regime change in the North. The Trump Administration has loudly declared it won’t accept a nuclear North Korea, but has been quiet on how it plans to convince North Korea to give up a nuclear arsenal it has suffered decades of sanctions and pressure to obtain. And in recent remarks at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Summit, HR McMaster made clear that US policy still holds to the maximalist goal of North Korean unilateral disarmament, and nothing less.
The risks in this approach are apparent even to its advocates. But what of the benefits? What is the Trump Administration’s theory of the case here? There isn’t one, at least not one with merit. It doesn’t matter whether one bases policy on insights from coercion theory or Korean history; there’s no reason to believe that going on the offensive with North Korea will lead to any favorable outcomes for the US.
One of the most common lessons from studies of Cold War competition is that coercion is difficult, and nuclear coercion even more so. As Robert Jervis, a godfather of security studies, observedlong ago, military signals are likely to be dismissed as cheap talk if there isn’t something that imbues them with credibility. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Twitter can signal hostility, but not resolve. In general, the idea that military signals will convince a nuclear state to disarm — or even show up at the negotiating table to disarm — commits the grievous sin of assuming you can buy deterrence on the cheap.
But even if the Trump Administration ignores theory to justify its pressure campaign in terms of Korea’s historical circumstances, there’s a major problem: the most relevant insight from Korean history is that North Korea already fears the US. Fear is why it went to such great lengths to get nuclear weapons in the first place. The Trump Administration doesn’t need to do anything out of the ordinary to make Kim Jong Un believe the US is willing to wage a war. This is a context in which US military signaling is like pouring extra water on a wet sponge; the threat environment is already so saturated that no good can come of more gratuitous US threats, even if the threats were in service of an achievable goal (and denuclearisation is not that).
Some of my colleagues close to the Administration have told me that escalating military pressure is really aimed at getting China to do more, rather than North Korea. But to what end? This is no more thoughtful than applying pressure directly on North Korea. Even if China becomes convinced that the US could attack North Korea and cause a regional catastrophe, it is irrational to expect that China would induce the catastrophe itself by bringing overwhelming pressure to bear on North Korea. And even if China did decide to coerce North Korea into denuclearisation, there’s no reason to believe it would be successful; except for one notable instance in the 1970s, North Korea’s entire history has been one of responding to pressure with pressure. So again, the Administration and its surrogates in the think-tank world have a broken theory of coercion.
It’s true that the likelihood of war is relatively low because, well, war is inherently far less common than non-war. As quantitative political scientists are fond of saying, ‘war is in the error term’. But taking solace in statistics misses the point.
War has antecedent conditions, and its indicators are alight in Korea. The Trump Administration’s maximum-pressure policy generates risks of miscalculation and an obvious impression that the US is positioning itself for war without any prospect of upside for the effort. Flirting with the possibility of inadvertent war needs to have payoffs for the nation. We should all be concerned about the lack of a positive rationale supporting America’s risk-taking approach to a quixotic goal.
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