Sea-Watch captain Rackete says Europe must take in climate refugees

The collapse of the climate system is resulting in refugees that Europe “of course” has to take in, German Sea-Watch captain Carola Rackete said in an interview with BILD. Rackete was arrested in June after she forced her ship carrying 40 migrants rescued off the Libyan coast into the Italian port of Lampedusa. “Climate flight is already a big issue today,” the Sea-Watch captain said. “We had people from ten different countries on the boat. It’s particularly bad in Bangladesh, but also in the Pacific, where islands are flooded, or in the deserts of Africa.” She stressed that “we must lower CO2 emissions to zero. If we live in an environmentally-friendly way, we are also helping the people in Africa, where the climate change can already been seen even more clearly than in Europe. We must not further heat up the earth.”

The World Bank estimates that “the worsening impacts of climate change in three densely populated regions of the world could see over 140 million people move within their countries’ borders by 2050”. In Germany, an Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) has proposed four possible initiatives for fair climate policy, including providing support for regions in transition and those most affected by climate change, and creating humane and dignified migration options for people forced to leave their countries due to climate change.