New Zealand mulls creating climate change refugee visas

Wellington, Oct 31 (IANS) New Zealands new government is considering creating a visa category to help relocate Pacific people displaced by climate change, the media reported on Tuesday.

The new category would make official the Green party's pre-election policy which promised 100 visas for those affected by climate change, reports the Guardian.

As part of the new Labour-led coalition government, Green party leader James Shaw was given the role of Climate Change Minister.

Shaw 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."

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.

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", the Guardian reported.

The case was dismissed by New Zealand's Supreme Court and Teitiota was deported the following year.

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