How climate change is driving migration, as people around the world face threats to their homes, livelihoods and food supplies - Bangladesh

Guests: Saleelmul Haq, Ameira Sawas

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This is one of the countries climate change has been impacting. As you see the lands having taken over the rivers, the temperature is rising and as time goes on, it seems to have gotten worse.

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MATT GALLOWAY: In Bangladesh, it's estimated that by 2050, one in every seven people will be displaced by climate change. Already, Bangladesh is a country of climate migrants. Rising sea levels are forcing people from their lands, moving to find food and work. At the same time, residents of Madagascar are suffering from the world's first ever climate change driven famine.

SOUNDCLIP

The people are eating whatever they can find. Between cactus mixed with mud, roots, whatever they can find; leaves, seeds, whatever is available.

MATT GALLOWAY: today, we're looking at how climate change and food insecurity are displacing millions around the world and how farmers are trying to adapt the way they grow food, in light of extreme weather.

SOUNDCLIP

So we are practising the agroecology way by going to indigenous with the natural system. By adding manure, this way we feed the animal, the animal will feed the soil and the soil will feed us.

MG: The eyes of the world are on Glasgow this week for Cop 26. But for the next 90 minutes, we'll take you to parts of the globe already feeling the effects of climate change up close. Good morning, I'm Matt Galloway. This is a special edition of The Current, The Climate Migrants. Bangladesh is a country that many experts call ground zero for climate change, already prone to monsoons and flooding. The country is facing a worsening climate related problem. Migrants streaming into its capital of Dhaka According to the International Organisation for Migration, 700000 Bangladeshis are displaced every year due to climate change, and many of them are farmers.

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[Via Translation] My name is Jamal. I'm from a little island who lives in Fisherman's District. It's a flood affected area. Suddenly at night, flood water fill our house, it was strong and wavy that it washed away and many houses, cattle and crop lands. It's a miserable experience, and I feel so helpless for my family and others. If everything goes under water, how could you survive? I had no choice but coming to pack up. It's been a year already. However, I couldn't manage a job. Some days I have food. Other days I struggled. The hardship is unbearable.

MG: Saber Hossein Chowdry is a cop, 26, he's an MP for Dhaka and the chairman of Parliamentary Committee for the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

SOUNDCLIP

Even at 1.5, The pain, the devastation the mosque is going to be enormous. We know now what the situation is going to look like wildfires, droughts, flooding all over the world. It's not just confined to Bangladesh and climate vulnerable countries, even in Canada, you see the changes that have taken place. So I think what we have to understand is the 1.5 isn't going to solve our problems because at 1.2, we are actually putting up with so much hardship and pain and loss and devastation.

MG: Mr. Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh and a professor at the Independent University in Bangladesh. Professor, hello.

SALEEMUL HUQ: Hello, how are you?

MG: I'm well, thank you. How familiar is Jamal's story? He's a farmer. His land was washed away, and now he's trying to find some work in the city.

SALEEMUL HUQ: It's extremely familiar. As you pointed out, thousands of people from rural parts of Bangladesh end up in Dhaka City every day. A large part of them come because of environmental policies, particularly the one that you heard is flooding and erosion of their land and their houses. Then they become destitute and they then end up in the slums of Dhaka City.

MG: What does that mean for the city? Well, what does that mean for the city itself? I mean, this is already a city that is bringing in people from across the country. It's very populated already. So how does the city deal with this extra level of migration?

SALEEMUL HUQ: As best it can, but not well. Dhaka city is the capital of Bangladesh and happens also to be the fastest growing capital or city in the world. And the predictions of climate induced migrants are in the many millions, possibly in the 10 million range. And for the city to absorb it at that number of people is going to be extremely difficult. One of the aspects of how we are trying to deal with that is to encourage these migrants or potential migrants to go to other towns and cities and not allcome to our city and we have a programme called Enabling Climate Resilient, Migrant Friendly Towns to attract these people in the future, not right now.

MG: What is different about what's happening right now? I mean, this is a country that that, as you would well know, is is prone to tropical storms flooding. But when you take a look at the weather and the climate, what's different now?

SALEEMUL HUQ: What's different now is the severity and frequency of severe events, so let's take floods, for example. We are on the delta of two of the biggest world river Ganges and the Brahmaputra. We have records of these rivers going back many, many hundreds of years, and a very severe flood is a one in 20 year event. That's the frequency at which a naturally occurring a severe flood occurred, that has happened in the past. Almost like clockwork, almost every 20 years, we had a severe flood. In the last 20 years, we've had four or possibly even five of them, which means that a one in 20 year magnitude bad flood is now happening one in four or one in five years. And that's something unusual, and it is absolutely attributable to the fact that global temperature has risen above one °C because of the emissions of greenhouse gases.

MG: Samir Hossein Chowdhury was saying that even with one and a half degrees, 1.5 degrees, that you're still going to see enormous devastation and an enormous loss. And there is doubt, I mean, this has been raised at COP that 1.5 will even be achieved. So where would that leave your country?

SALEEMUL HUQ: Well, we have been one of the countries, along with many other vulnerable countries, arguing for the 1.5 limit, but it isn't as if we fall off a cliff at 1.5. It is an incremental process and even now at 1.1 or 1.2, we are seeing severe impacts. These will go up. Every little fraction of a degree will increase the impacts of climate change and affect more and more people. Initially, they'll affect the poorest people on the planet, many of them living in my country, Bangladesh. But it over time, they will affect even rich people living in your countries as well. And that's already happening. If you look at the wildfires in Canada and in the United States, in California, those are all attributable to [unintelligible].

MG: In the meantime, what is happening in Bangladesh when it comes to adaptation? There are some really interesting strategies that are put into place to try to help people make their way through these changes.

SALEEMUL HUQ: Absolutely. So Bangladesh had known about its vulnerability for the last 10 years, and it hasn't been sitting idle, we've been figuring out exactly what kinds of impacts we're likely to have, where they're going to be, who's going to be affected and how we can help them to be better prepared. And we've done several things which are, I would say, outstanding globally, one of them being our cyclone and flood warning system. In Banglades,. We have severe floods, we have severe cyclones, but we track them and we warn people and we evacuate them and we don't lose lives anymore. We used to lose tens of thousands of lives. We don't anymore. You know, the recent floods in Germany, where they lost nearly 200 people, that would not happen in Bangladesh. We'd have much bigger, but we don't lose life. That's one very important metric in terms of better preparedness and adaptation. Similarly, in the low lying coastal towns of the country, the farmers are now growing saline tolerant varieties of crops and rice that our scientists have developed as an adaptation to thank you. So Bangladesh is very much at the forefront of adapting to the impacts of climate change, and many other countries can also learn from them.

MG: There's infrastructure that's been put into place as well. I mean, these floating hospitals and floating schools.

SALEEMUL HUQ: Absolutely floating gardens, floating agriculture, floating schools and floating hospitals are all very much ways of living with the excess water that we have now, but also in some cases, building embankments to protect some of the high value areas. Also, to deal with the potential climate migrants that we mentioned earlier, we have this programme of developing a climate resilient, migrant friendly town to enable these people not to end up in the slums of Tampa, but to go to other towns, get jobs, get the development, get access to hospitals and education that enables them to lead better life even though they are forced to live where they are originally living.

MG: And so when you say the rest of the world could learn from the adaptation, that's Bangladesh's implemented, what do you mean by that?

SALEEMUL HUQ: Well, I mean, one of the most important aspects of adaptation of being prepared for these kinds of disasters and climate impact is people knowing about them and knowing what to do when they happen and that we have in spades. Bangladeshis are all extremely aware of the impacts of climate change very much. We can't stop these cyclones of floods from happening, but we can manage to deal with them when they do. And as I said, we don't lose lives anymore. People get evacuated. We have almost 100 percent of that strength in evacuation, and that's not losing life. Unlike, for example, the Hurricane Katrina, that if New Orleans and the United States, more than a thousand people in New Orleans lost their life, that wouldn't happen.

MG: But your country contributes less than one percent of global emissions. And yet, as you said, I mean, climate change is happening right now and you find yourself at the centre of the effects of climate change. How do you understand that? I mean, is it frustrating? Is it a motivating factor for the work that you're doing?

SALEEMUL HUQ: It's both frustrating as well as motivating, the frustration comes here in the COPs where I am right now in Glasgow, where, you know, nearly 200 country leaders in the last few days giving speeches but not doing very much. This is where they have to take action, particularly the countries that are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions is still not doing enough. They're doing a bit, but not enough at all, including Canada. And at the ground level. It's motivating in terms of, you know, we have to look after ourselves. We are going to have to deal with it. The world is either preventing the problem from occurring or coming to help us deal with it. We're on our own and we have to figure out how to do it.

MG: How do you get countries like Canada to pay attention to what's happening there?

SALEEMUL HUQ: Well, I guess you know you, the citizens of Canada and your listeners are the ones that need to be telling your government to do what they do they. The problem with the politicians, like the Canadian politicians and other developed countries since they pay lip service to doing things. So they have actually agreed to take action six years ago in Paris at COP21. You know, we have a Paris agreement that all countries agreed to. They haven't done anything in the last six years to actually implement what they promised to do, so they need to implement what they promised to do.

MG: This is your 26th U.N. climate conference?

SALEEMUL HUQ: Yes, I've been to every single one.

MG: How many more of these do you think you'll have to go to before you actually see the action that you're calling for?

SALEEMUL HUQ: I have no idea, but we cannot give up. We have to keep on trying.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. It's great to speak with you and thank you for taking time out of a busy schedule to speak with us. Thank you. Saleemul-Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh. He was in Glasgow this morning for COP26. Ameira Sawas has spent years working with people displaced by climate change in places like Bangladesh, but also Pakistan, Jordan and Kenya. She's the programmes and research director with climate outreach based in London, and she's also in Glasgow attending COP26 Ameira. Hello to you.

AMEIRA SAWAS: Good morning.

MG: We've been talking about Bangladesh. What do you think the rest of the world should take away from the situation that's unfolding in that country right now?

AMEIRA SAWAS: Well, I think the world has a lot to learn from Bangladesh, actually. Bangladesh has been consistently one of, if not the most vulnerable country in the world to climate impacts. And as a result there's been a lot of growing intellect, authorisation and practise about how we respond to climate change at multiple levels. So there are lots of really interesting local solutions, but there are also lots of kind of political drive.

MG: I think it's worth defining what we're talking about because this is a phrase that is being thrown around. But how do you define what a climate migrant is?

AMEIRA SAWAS: I think there's a sort of broad understanding that the impacts of climate change can have a knock on impacts onto people's livelihoods, and those livelihood impacts can lead people to feel that they are sort of out of options. Most people would like to stay in that in their hometown, in their place of work, but they feel that their options are becoming limited. You also have the opposite side, which is people who are affected by those severe weather impacts, but they don't have the mobility, so the most vulnerable people sometimes get trapped in place. And so you find communities, some of the community have left it. Sometimes men leave, sometimes women leave. It really depends on the kind of circumstances in the country, but you tend to find that you have often more elderly people or more young people, sometimes women and girls, they get trapped and left behind. So I think there's quite a broad range of climate migrants, and I do get uncomfortable at times when sort of strong language is used for political point scoring around climate induced migrants or climate forced migrants because the large majority of climate migrants are internal migrants, in fact.

MG: Do we know right now globally how many people are climate migrants?

AMEIRA SAWAS: So we know that by 2050, approximately 260 million internal climate migrants will be around the world. So that's, you know, people who've been displaced within their national borders. And then there's, you know, a small number or, you know, proportionally on top of that who are sort of more international.

MG: Again, you've hinted at this, but I mean, migration is part of the human story. What's different about what's happening right now?

AMEIRA SAWAS: Well, I think that's very important to say that migration has happened throughout history. What is slightly different now is that you have of disasters, you have slow onset and you have rapid onset, and we're sort of seeing a growth in both. So we're seeing this kind of slow wearing away of people's lives, livelihoods, infrastructure and wellbeing through droughts, you know, desertification through water, you know, the biodiversity loss, which is impacting livelihoods through water, becoming salty over time, so you see that and that's happening in a lot of places. And then you have the sudden onset climate related disasters or extreme weather events, which are hard to predict, not following the patterns that you see over history. So that's what is exacerbating the numbers of climate migrants.

MG: We were talking about Bangladesh already, but in the work that you've done in Pakistan, in Jordan and Kenya, what are the stories that stay with you about the people that you've worked with and the situations that they have faced?

AMEIRA SAWAS: There's a couple of things that really stand out for me. So one is the gendered dimension of climate related migration. So, you know, every country has a different context, and that also varies within the country. But we do still tend to live in patriarchal societies where life is a little bit easier in certain ways for men in terms of being able to get around, having social networks, having access to cash, having access to infrastructure. And so what we tend to see is that you do find women particularly poor women, so struggle the most. They're the ones that aren't necessarily receiving the social protection and support that they need. I think the other thing for me that's quite interesting is that the responses to climate related migration don't always link in to the realities of those local communities, as sometimes the responses feel quite imposed from whether it's the national government or whether it's international stakeholders who aren't really rooted in the community. So sometimes the so-called responses can end up dispossessing the people who they're supposed to help. What do you mean by that? I mean, what do you mean by that? Dispossession is kind of like you don't get physically moved from your place, but you get your kind of situation gets worsened even more. So what we need to do is have much more grounded understandings of the realities of people's lives, of the different kinds of migration that is impacted by climate and then develop local solutions.

MG: Do you see this playing out differently in developing countries as compared to developed countries?

AMEIRA SAWAS: Definitely. And that's largely because developed countries are not experiencing the frontline impacts of the climate crisis. The other issue is that lots of developing countries are burdened with a kind of a debt to developing countries, and when they're experiencing rapid onset disasters, they have to seek support and that support is often in the form of loans and that pushes them further into debt. So this is why the cop is very important because there's a big agenda item on the table around what's called loss and damage. So those who have been able to develop at the expense sometimes of those in the in the global south to put money into a pot every year so that if there was a disaster, then developing countries could reach into that pot and provide social protection and respond to the climate related disaster without getting further pushed into debt.

MG: And how far along is that? I mean, those promises have been made and we'll hear more about this, but there are many people who believe that the promises have not been delivered upon. How far along are those conversations now do you think?

AMEIRA SAWAS: They're not where they should be? They're not where they should be? There's not very much progress on it so far.

MG: You talked about the scaremongering and migration now certainly is linked in many communities to politics, whether it's the crossings in the Mediterranean or what's happening on the southern borders of the United States. What's your understanding about the public's perception of climate migrants in wealthier nations, given those politics?

AMEIRA SAWAS: I think the public's perception is sometimes it's used to drive further polarisation on certain political issues. You know, there's fear that's not necessarily rooted in facts. So the fear of climate migration, migration happening internationally being very rapid and millions of people moving to different places and that is is a sort of narrative which is unfortunately used.

MG: What is at stake if this is not recognised for what it is and that the action that you've been calling for and others have been calling for a cop doesn't come to pass.

AMEIRA SAWAS: I mean, as someone who believes personally in human rights, it's the, you know, the human rights of literally millions of people. So we absolutely have to have an ambitious outcome at COP, if I can give an example. So Paris agreed two degrees, but that was sort of a statement in around Paris that the edly 1.5 degrees so after the Paris Agreement, IPCC, they get together and they look at the evidence. And what they found is that the difference between 1.5 and two degrees is something around a million additional people being driven into poverty globally. So that what feels like a small amount to those of us who are living in the north in the global north is actually huge in terms of the impact on people's livelihoods. So this is the the most systemic crisis that has faced humanity in a long time. And so we need very ambitious decisions.

MG: Ameira, it's great to speak with you. Thank you very much for taking some time to speak with us.

AMEIRA SAWAS: Thank you for having me.

MG: Ameira Sawas is programmes and research director with Climate Outreach based in London. You're CBC. News is next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

The magnitude of the crisis is so, so big. But you have people actually that do not have anything to do, then just go to leave their house, to live their land, to leave their village.

MG: Five years of consecutive drought have left the land and the people of Madagascar empty. It is being called the world's first climate change induced famine. In a moment, we'll hear what's being done to help those in need and how this disaster is leaving other parts of the continent scrambling for solutions. I'm Matt Galloway and this is a special edition of The Current, The Climate Migrants.

Madagascar's 'climate-induced famine' forces people to eat locusts and cactus leaves to survive: advocate

Guests: Tsina Endor, Agnes Kalibata

MG: Hello, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MG: Still to come, it's not hard to figure out what happens when a continent with millions of farmers goes through years of drought. Those farmers move in about 30 minutes. We'll hear from a Guatemalan flower farmer who came to Canada about what he's been through. But first on the ground in Madagascar and the farmers in Africa who are trying desperately to stay put.

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[Via Translation] I rely on God. Today we have absolutely nothing to eat except cactus leaves that we're trying to clean out. We have nothing left. I noticed that their mother is dead. Not that. My husband is dead. What do you want me to say? Our life is about looking for cactus leaves again and again to survive.

MG: A woman in the southern region of Madagascar. She's standing beside two emaciated children. Madagascar is on the brink of famine. Severe droughts have left many regions of that country without food. And according to the United Nations, this would be the world's first climate induced famine. Tsina Endor is the deputy director of the NGO seed Madagascar. Seen a good morning.

TSINA ENDOR: Good morning.

MG: That is a really stark picture painted by that woman in terms of what she is doing to survive. How would you describe the situation in Madagascar right now?

TSINA ENDOR: This is the worst situation that was happening in decades in the south part of Madagascar. This is the result of no rain at all, and it carried on with like a very bad wind and all of the land where people are growing stuff have been covered with sands and this is the result, the very severe famine that is happening in this area.

MG: What does that look like? I mean, without the rain, what does that drought look like on the ground?

TSINA ENDOR: It is very bad. Like, the Malagasy people are eating rice three times a day, and growing rice in this part of the island. So it looks like the rice field is like a football place, where children is playing on. It should be full of water, but it's dried like a clay, like a sun on the rice field.

MG: We heard that woman at the beginning describing eating cactus leaves. What are the lengths that people are going to in order to get any food that they can get their hands on?

TSINA ENDOR: Mainly, the food of the Malagasy people are rice. But when there is no availability, people is looking around them what is available to eat. So instead of starving, people are selling all of their belongings to buy food. Even you find at the market, it's like very expensive for them to buy. And you see when there is a little rain, whatever is left on the field is eaten by locusts as well, so they eat locusts, on top of the cactus leaves. So it's really bad.

MG: What about water to drink? I mean, water to water the fields is one thing, but where are people getting water to drink?

TSINA ENDOR: This is the most awful thing to say, but when there is rain and there is like a water that's tugging on the road, people is going and collect those water. Because where it is dried, there is no rainwater harvesting system enough for everyone in the small villages, and the streams is all dried this way.

MG: So they're getting stagnant water out of puddles off the road?

TSINA ENDOR: Yes, that's what people getting. That's the closest way they can take.

MG: I mentioned in the introduction that the United Nations has said this is the first climate-induced famine that could be unfolding in Madagascar. What role do you see climate change playing in what you've described?

TSINA ENDOR: Yeah, this is a it was dry the last 40 years in this part of the island, but it's unpredictable. So the cycle of the season in Madagascar, there are two different seasons. There is the the summer with lots of rain, and there is the winter, which is very dry. But it's there is not much difference between those two seasons now anymore because it's like the drought is like carried on from April, even until now, we are in the start of November and we still have no rain in Madagascar.

MG: What has that meant in terms of migration? Are people moving around the country to try and find somewhere where they can grow food, where they can find water and where the dust storms and the sandstorms aren't as severe?

TSINA ENDOR: Yes, many people have run from the deep south of Madagascar to this area in Fort Dauphin, where I live and where I am based on on here. It's about 10,000 people have emigrated from that part of the island to here in the hope to find even water, and to find somewhere, any places where people can find something to eat or can find a job to do, or can work someone's land. So it's very, very bad. And there was as well some people that have moved into the highland, into the capital, Antananarivo and its surrounding, because they have sold their houses, they have sold their land, they have sold even the seeds that they meant to grow in the next plantation season. And there is nothing for them, in the hope to find food and in the hope to find somewhere else to stay, to survive.

MG: What do you want people around the world to understand about the impact of climate change? Madagascar is not a huge driver of climate change, but you're seeing this in real time. You're seeing it right in front of you. So what do you want the rest of the world to know about what's happening when it comes to climate change?

TSINA ENDOR: What I would like to say is like this instance is unexpected, but when people still have time to consider it as a really big problem and may bring like an fast impact to the population and this world. To me, in the short term for the Madagascar people, I think bringing food on people's table is the solution, immediate solution. On the longer term, I'd like to give more understanding to people how to mitigate the climate change. More techniques and awareness of globalisation, with education, should be given to people.

MG: It's a very difficult situation. I appreciate you describing what you're seeing and the work that you're doing, and I wish you the very best, you know. Thank you very much.

TSINA ENDOR: Thank you very much.

MG: Tsina Endor is the deputy director of the NGO Seed Madagascar. Across Africa, there are an estimated 33 million smallholder farms. The farmers who work on them contribute up to 70 percent of the continent's food supply. But they're feeling the effects of climate change. Too much rain that causes flooding or too little rain that causes drought. Crops can quickly fail with devastating impacts on families and on communities. But many of those farmers are adapting the way they farm to mitigate against a changing climate and landscape. Women like Anita Sutha, who grows maize and groundnuts and rears livestock. She's also the national coordinator of the Rural Women Farmers Association of Ghana.

SOUNDCLIP

Good morning. Today is another day I'm in my farm feeding my [unintelligible] making nice [unintelligible]. Climate change of drastically cause harm to our farm. So much, so much in the sense that this year it rained too much so we had flood all over. I didn't pick a single grain from my corn farms. I didn't get anything. So this climate change has caused a lot of harm and the climate change impacts means that this year there's a lot of hunger. This year we challenge, we have a lot of challenges to feed ourselves and our family as well. It is important for women to be the forefront of climate change in the sense that whatever that happens it's the woman that suffer. We are the people that are on the ground working. So now because of this climate change we are advising, we've advised ourselves to go into [unintelligible] in addition, the [unintelligible] is [unintelligilbe] of animals. It could be sheeps, goats, pigs so that we can use the animal drop in as manure. And by so doing this we feed the animal, the animal will feed the soil and the soil will feed us. So we are practising agro ecology by going the indigenous way. The natural system. By adding manure, using our old seeds, we go in for our local seeds. So we try to grow the natural organic way, so wethat at least we can have good food. It is good we are willing to eat so that we can practise more agri-ecological farming practises because we'll feed the soil. Then the soil use water to feed us.

MG: That's Anita Sutha, national coordinator of the Rural Women Farmers Association of Ghana. As COP26 unfolds, African leaders are calling on the international community to help the continent adapt to climate change. Back in 2009, wealthier countries promised to raise $100 billion annually to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change. It was supposed to start in 2020, but that hasn't happened. Agnes Kalibata is the president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. She was also the special envoy for the UN's Food Systems Summit that took place in September. Agnes, good morning.

AGNES KALIBATA: Good morning.

MG: Broadly, how would you describe the food security situation across the continent right now?

AGNES KALIBATA: We've seen from a food situation perspective, we've seen an increase in food insecurity. Some of it is attributed to COVID 19, but a lot of that was happening even before COVID 19. So we are seeing over one hundred and sixty one million people now across the world from an[unintelligible] perspective are said to be going hungry. And about 47 million of those people on the African continent, really, the food situation is deteriorating again as a result of COVID 19, but also before COVID 19 as a result of climate change. So the combination is really putting the continent in a very difficult situation.

MG: We've been speaking about Madagascar. I mean, how does what's happening in Madagascar specifically fit in with that larger situation?

AGNES KALIBATA: So Madagascar has experienced the worst drought any country could have. So it's a very difficult situation for that island. And the reason is really is climate change. It's because of one drought, failed drought after another failed drought in Madagascar, we've seen 50 percent failure seasons because of droughts, which results in farmers finding themselves in an impossible situation where they have to move or find other sources of food.

MG: And you're seeing that again across the continent. I mean, when you talk about the unpredictability that climate change brings, what does that mean if you're a farmer in Africa, how is climate change in some ways complicating the way that you farm and what you're able to grow?

AGNES KALIBATA: So for a farmer in Madagascar who you've just been talking about in this particular situation, we've seen farmers use seed as food. When a farmer in Africa uses seed as food, you know that things are very bad. Well, we are also seeing other situations like in Ethiopia, where farmers moving their farming land in areas they haven't farmed before. For example, if you're a farmer and teff requires good temperatures as it warms down where you've been farming, you start moving up in the Highlands to be able to find a climate that is suitable for you to farming. That's one option. The other option is you would have to have access to a drought tolerant variety of teff, of seed type, that allows you to farm in that environment. So we are seeing farmers make these types of choices. Do they have access to those seeds and the types of fertilisers that would allow them to produce and to be able to produce in those environments? That's part of what my institution does, ensuring that farmers that are struggling to to find drought tolerant varieties of seeds to find seeds after the return of the seed we have. So yeah, that's the kind of situation that farmers are finding themselves in. Sometimes they have to divert from which they've grown up knowing. So you may have to move from teff farming to maize farming because teff farming no longer makes sense in the environment. So those are the type of choices that farmers are living with, failed crop of the failed crop, that happened as a result of failed rains.

MG: And just not being able to predict when the rains are going to come. I mean, it might be the rainy season, but the rain is not as consistent, perhaps as it has been in seasons past.

AGNES KALIBATA: And that's a very important step to the two that you raise because I mean, my mum farms. So one of the things I hear most often is when I call [unintelligible]. Well, yeah, the first crop failed, so I had to replant. But now our crops are growing. Hopefully they will mature. They'll grow older with maturity because what is unpredictable today, the seasons are very predictable. And really, one of the things again, we must do as institutions start thinking about how we help these farmers have better predictability of the environment they are living in. Because the environment has changed. Nothing for them is the same. They don't know when to plant. When they plant, it fails. They don't know when to replant. When they do, it fails. They don't know what crops will do well in the environment's there, what can be done.

MG: You mentioned using drought resistant seeds. What else specifically are farmers trying to do to mitigate the effects of climate change in in the areas where they're still able to farm?

AGNES KALIBATA: So again, one of the things they could do is diversify, move away from some of the crops that they are used to growing and grow crops that are more tolerant, that more heat tolerant, more cold tolerant so that they can be able to have a good crop. So, for example, farmers in Malawi were used to growing maize, had to move away from maize and start growing potatoes because they saw that potatoes could survive in that environment. But the other things they could do as well. Things like finding ways of retaining water longer when it does rain, digging ditches in their farms and ensuring that those dishes can hold water longer. Finding water storage for seeds. Harvesting that water. Those are some of the things they could do. Away from the farmers, the the things that governments can do to support and strengthen them, ensuring that they have some form of crop insurance that allows them to come back when it fails, at least with seed. Allow them to access the pack of seed after the first pack of seed has failed.

MG: How expensive is it to introduce those mitigation steps to change what you're farming and change how your farming?

AGNES KALIBATA: So first of all, look at it from a perspective of most of these farmers. By the time they are getting to that decision, they completely have nothing. They've, again, I give you an example earlier. The worst thing a farmer can do in this type of funding farming landscape is to use their seed for food. So when you don't get what you expect, you can't be able to sell for the next season. And most of these farmers save seed for food. I mean, instead of seeds, they can be able to have a good crop or they can buy seed. So if nobody's able to produce from a previous season, they sell to get access to seed. So that's number one. Number two, they start selling their assets, they sell a cow here to survive. They sell whatever assets they have. So these are some of the most depressed communities in terms of capital and resources. And being able to build back is going to depend on how much as communities you can be able to get, how much as countries you can be able to invest in strengthening these communities. That's why this whole idea of countries coming through on the money that is promised to deal with loss and damage is something that is extremely important. Even as we are having these conversations in COP26, we have to recognise that they are communities that are already suffering and these communities will need us to come through. They have nothing. Their resource businesses have been eroded for them to be able to build back or even come forward in any way, they are going to need resources from somewhere.

MG: When you talk about coming through with that money, I mean, those funds have been promised and they have yet to be delivered in many instances, how frustrating is that for you?

AGNES KALIBATA: I mean, it's it's extremely difficult to describe because for some of these countries, climate change is here. Even if we manage to reverse it, for these communities, they already live in the climate change.

MG: It's not. It's not some sort of abstract idea. It's already happening.

AGNES KALIBATA: It's not an abstract idea. They already live in climate change. They're seeing everything being eroded. They need to survive climate change. So the priority for African countries, they need to strengthen the resilience of communities. They need to strengthen the resilience of their land so that people can survive climate change, which is already happening. This is probably going to go on for the next 20 to 30 years, even if we stopped emissions today. So the best bit we can do today is to put the money on the table so that these communities can survive what is already happening now. We have to understand that that commitment has to be rethought. It can't just be a talk show. It has to be real. People already living through climate change. And the world has enough money. It's not a question of money. The world has enough money to ensure that we don't have this [unintelligible] that people are dying because we are doing nothing. In Madagascar. They contribute to less than zero zero zero point one percent to climate change. But this community is already dying today because as a people, we shouldn't allow this to be part of our conscious.

MG: Agnes, I'm glad to speak with you about this. Thank you very much, and thanks for talking to us about the work that you're doing.

AGNES KALIBATA: Thank you for giving me the opportunity.

MG: That's Agnes Kalibata. She's the president of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa

This Burkina Faso farmer raps to highlight climate change's effects on agriculture

SOUNDCLIP

[Foreing speech]

MG: Art Melody is many things. His real name is Mamadou Armel Konkobo. He is a musician. He's a rapper, and it also happens a farmer on five hectares of land outside the capital city of Burkina Faso. Ouagadougou in East Africa.

SOUNDCLIP

I just finished yesterday...

MG: He has just finished with his crop of peanuts, he says, and he's clearing away the brush, getting set to plant a new one. Art sings while he farms - remember I mentioned he's a rapper, too, and he comes by both locations, honestly. His parents were both farmers. He grew up in this world, but his mother was also a singer. And so while he works the land, he also makes music. Seven albums now on the side, here's a bit more of art Melody's story in his own words.

SOUNDCLIP

[Via Translation]

Here on the farm. I produce maize, millet, beans, peanuts, tomatoes, onions. Next to this, we have a few animals, goats, sheep and chickens as well. Look at this fruit. It's not normal. It's really incredible that it's bearing fruit right now. Maybe it's a change that you can't really explain. Normally, the crop in Burkina Faso, it finishes in the month of August. Now it's November, and it's not even done.

[Music]

I talk about climate change in my music because it's real and it's true. If you're not attentive, you won't notice the reality of climate change because I work in agriculture. I'm from the family of farmers. I notice that when I was little, the rainy season started earlier and finished later. Now it starts late and ends sooner. Now I have the chance to be behind a microphone. And if I use my voice, I think people will notice these developments more. Maybe they'll start to put their foot on the accelerator a bit more.

[Music]

There's one song called [unintelligible] that is going to be on my new album. I'm singing about how people are cutting down trees if they don't repent them. And there's drought. Plants don't produce. And there's famine.

[Singing]

In this place, there was a village maybe 30 or 40 years ago with at least two or three hundred people. But when we got here, we found nobody because, really, the source of life that this village had, it's been lost. It could be trees or water or the fertility of the soil. The population has fled to the city, and so now it's basically empty here.

[Music]

It hasn't been simple here. We have had fires here and the countryside burned two years ago, and it was discouraging. But we tighten our belts and continued and we will continue. But I don't know if we will always have the strength to continue

MG: Thanks to Art Melody just outside of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for sharing his story with freelance reporter Henry Wilkins. Well, coming up after your regional update in South America, rivers are drying up, crops are getting smaller and people are starting to move from farms to cities, cities to borders and into North America. I'm Matt Galloway, you're listening to The Current will leave you with more of Art Melody.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

How climate change is driving migration, as people around the world face threats to their homes, livelihoods and food supplies - Guatemala

Guest: Warda Shazadi Meighen, Amali Tower, Blake Davis

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to a special edition of The Current, The Climate Migrants. When you rely on a good crop to survive one bad season can destroy lives in much of South and Central America. The bad seasons have become the only seasons in Guatemala. 2019 was the driest year on record, and there has been a punishing cycle of rivers and streams running dry and then flash floods. And these conditions have pushed thousands of people to flee for a better life. Some have ended up here in Canada. Mateo is one of them. He was a flower farmer in Guatemala who grew up with good harvests. He came to Quebec when it all collapsed. We've changed his name because he's afraid of repercussions around his work visa and for his family in Guatemala.

SOUNDCLIP

[Via translation] Most of my family members were flower farmers, so most of them worked in the field, growing flowers for at least 20 years and lived through a golden era because the land was fertile. There were many mountains and water sources, and flowers would bloom with just a little bit of organic fertiliser, which helped the plants grow well. We didn't really use much insecticide or fungicide. After the earthquake in 76 times small population started to grow. That's when we started feeling that change because trees got chopped down and the rivers. There were many water sources. The rivers dried up, and then the difficulties started. I remember 1980s onward. That's when the drought was felt the most in Guatemala because more fungicides and insecticides were being used. Trees were already being cut down in some places. There were no longer springs and rivers began to dry up. That's when we began to dig wells by hand. At that time, there were about 10 or 12 metre deep. Nowadays, they have to dig wells. I can go as deep as 30 or 40 metres. We know there are about 20000 farmers in our town. Several of them have gone abroad in the hopes of improving their livelihood and providing for their families. The problem, at its core, is the drought It was very difficult to leave my family, especially my wife, my young children and my mother. But sometimes I think I reassure them we're going to get ahead. But it is very difficult. I left my family because of necessity, even though I miss them. There's a period of a lot of sadness when you leave your country. You also leave behind your culture, your lifestyle and the weather. I have nine kids. Of those nine, I have two kids working here in Canada. The rest of my kids are in Guatemala. They're in school. I've told them that they already need to study and that they likely won't be able to farm because it's too hard nowadays to work on the land. What I wanted to say to my country, to my people, is that they have to raise awareness. We need developed countries to talk about the climate, about garbage, about the effects of going on the peace about how to use the land. We need the support of developed countries. It's sad because it's nice in my town and growing flowers is a really beautiful job.

MG: That was Mateo, who used to own a flower farm in Guatemala. He spoke with us from Quebec, where he now works under a migrant visa. Mateo was able to make it to Canada and find work. Not everyone displaced by climate change is so lucky. The pressure on the U.S. southern border has been increasing year after year, and a caravan of thousands of Central American migrants is currently making its way through Mexico. Blake Davis is the chief programme officer at Global Response Management. It's an NGO that supports people on the move. Blake, good morning.

BLAKE DAVIS: Hey, Matt, how are you?

MG: I'm well, you were in Guatemala after both hurricanes in 2020. What did you see in terms of the impact of those storms and what that meant for farmers on the ground there?

BLAKE DAVIS: So we sent a small team of medicks doctors and some water engineers into this small indigenous village named [unintelligilbe] and where it's located, the mountains are shaped like a toilet bowl where all of their crops are growing in the entire bowl filled with water. We moved across flooded farmland that the Guatemalan military told us. The water level was 50 metres deep.

MG: 50 metres deep.

BLAKE DAVIS: 50 metres. Yeah, that's correct. We were skimming across the tops of trees and we were running in these boats for 25-30 minutes just across all of this farmland to get to these cut off villages. Due to the water level. Not only were there cropland destroyed, they had just done that harvest and around two thirds of the food that was supposed to sustain them for the next three to four months had been completely destroyed. So now you have a population that has been literally pushed up the mountains their entire, you know, all their land was flooded out. Most of their food was gone. Their latrines were destroyed, their churches were destroyed, making them that much more desperate. And inevitably with that, you're going to see the migration of people north first out of that area into the larger cities Guatemala, where they're going to compete for jobs when they can't find them. The natural progression is to start heading north to the southern border of the United States.

MG: You set up camps on the Mexico border. What are those camps look like right now?

BLAKE DAVIS: Right now, they're dispersed. When we were working there last year, the camp in [unintelligible] specifically was on the wrong side of a levee on the border of the Rio Grande, and it's designed to flood. And when Hurricane Hanna hit in June or July of 2020, the entire camp flooded. Lucky for us, we did have some advance warning systems in place where we were able to communicate that people were able to get to higher land. But our field hospital that we built for COVID flooded. And it's just one more reason or one more difficult thing that all of these migrants had to face trying to get into the United States.

MG: And as you mentioned, I mean, people have been making that journey north from South and Central America for a long time. But how has climate change impacted that trip itself?

BLAKE DAVIS: So what we're seeing now we have a team in southern Mexico that's been following the latest caravan, which is around two to 3000 people, and I'm speaking with our physician down there last night. He is saying that around 10 percent of the migrants that he is treating are severe heat casualties requiring resuscitation or transport to the hospital. Of that, 10 percent, 90 percent are children. These are kids that are critically ill due to being out in those elements. When you're seeing these longer, record breaking reports of, you know, September is the hottest September on record and then October is the hardest one on record as you move closer to the equator, that heat is more extreme, and these migrants are physically walking through it without access to water malnourished without access to their medicines, either. So by the time they get to a spot to rest, they're in extreme risk of heat exhaustion, heat stroke. And you know, there's we have a team of four that is treating them, and that's for two to three thousand people. Right now,

MG: we're about to speak about the legal obligations of countries like Canada and the United States to those who are seeking refuge because of climate change. But before I let you go, I mean, what do you want us here in Canada and people in the United States to understand about what those migrants are going through? You're working with them directly. So what should we know about this?

BLAKE DAVIS: The the biggest takeaway that people need to realise is these are good people. They are predominantly family units, mothers and children. A lot of cases, the father figure is not there, whether it's because they are currently working or they've been killed. And now it's a mother or a grandmother with three, four, six kids trying to get to a better life. And we need to stop demonising these people. They're nice. They're hard working. Our organisation has relied on them extensively as physicians, nurses, pharmacists in the refugee camp. We were able to, you know, a doctor would identify as a physician from Cuba or Venezuela or Mexico and be able to care for their fellow refugees. And the United States and Canada should be lucky to have those people. They are, I would say, significantly tougher and more resilient than your average citizen that you might see on the street just because of what they're willing to go through for a better life in the U.S. or in Canada.

MG: Blake, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

BLAKE DAVIS: Yeah, Matt, thank you.

MG: Blake Davis, chief programme officer at Global Response Management. Mateo, who we heard from earlier, is in Canada on a migrant worker visa. Climate change was not mentioned in his application, and that's because in Canada and in the United States, climate change is not a recognised reason to apply for asylum. You can apply on the grounds of civil war, fear of persecution or human rights abuse, but not because climate change has made your home unliveable. Warda Shazade Meighen is an immigration and refugee lawyer partner at Landing's law firm in Toronto and a board member of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. A Molly Tower is the founder and executive director of Climate Refugees. It's an NGO that fights for protection and rights of people displaced by climate change, and they both join us now. Good morning to you, both.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Morning.

AMALI TOWER: Good morning.

MG: What is? We should define this year? What is the difference between a climate migrant and a climate refugee,

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: A climate migrant who is a person who is in Canada and or outside of the country of nationality or habitual residence, and whose country is no longer inhabitable, either because of short term or long term environmental disaster. And if they are returned to that country, they face either degradation to their life, liberty or security of the person. A refugee is a legal term in law, and it has been given a very specific meaning by the UN Refugee Convention, so that it has a specific meaning where a person is being persecuted and there's a specific agent of persecution. And so that's really the difference in the situation of climate migrants, where there is no specific agent of persecution and just environmental issues.

MG: Do we know how many people there are in Canada like Mateo, who are here because of climate change, but but not legally here for that reason, if I can put it that way?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: We don't know because there's no specific avenue, it's very difficult to track the numbers.

MG: But is your sense that there Mateo certainly isn't by any stretch the only person here under under that umbrella?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: No. Well, there's no there's no way to exactly know how many people there are because it's sort of like a catch 22, right? So folks are not claiming refuge under kind of migration categories because those categories don't exist, so it's difficult to track the numbers.

MG: When did you, Amali, first realise that climate change was beginning to be a factor in the story of migrants applying to be refugees. You worked for the UNHCR, and so you would have a bird's eye view on this.

AMALI TOWER: Yes, exactly. I used to work for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, and I've also conducted refugee resettlement and for the United States government, that would be the U.S. refugee admissions programme. And I think I really became quite consciously aware of it while I heard refugees themselves tell me lead with when asked Why can't you return to your country of origin? Or what situation did you face that that led to you fleeing your country? I heard Somali refugees tell me over and over again and respond with situation. Speaking about drought, crop loss, not being able to feed their families or speaking about things in the context of there's nothing to return to and describing situations of environmental degradation. It still took me years not to really unpack the the sheer power and really the volume of what that statement really meant. Because, as Wardawas just saying, when you're conducting an interview that is in the context of the 1951 Refugee Convention and you're making a determination as to someone's life, this is a life changing interview. For someone - refugees are very informed of the law - for someone to lead then with what exactly changed, what was a tipping point, it's actually quite a profound statement to to to speak of climate conditions.

MG: Warda, is there any legal forum for someone like Mateo to talk about what he has gone through in a refugee claim in Canada right now?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: There is not currently any legal forum for someone like. We at the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers have a number of policy options for the government that we have put forth where we're saying, you know, there are a range of options on the books that we can utilise to help someone like Mateo's. For instance, we have a public policy class that already allows the minister to grant permanent residence on the basis of public policy considerations. Canada currently has over a dozen public policy classes that provide protection to large groups of individuals in the aftermath of environmental disasters. So, for example, in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the minister ordered stays of removals to all Haitian nationals who otherwise would be removed from Canada. And the minister prioritised sponsorship applications for those affected by disaster. So there's no legislative or regulatory process that's required. It's really just by the stroke of a pen. The minister can do this, and it's ideal to get moving on this really quickly. And to do this, we have the flexibility in Canadian law. We could also resettle through private sponsorship and expand our current humanitarian protected persons class. But we need political leadership to focus on this. We're saying, you know, we're seeing climate migration is such a huge issue at COP26, where we have the instruments to do this in line. We've got to get moving on it.

MG: We also we also have a legal obligation, right? I mean, when we're talking about other definitions of why somebody would seek refugee status would seek asylum, I mean, there are legal obligations that a country like Canada has.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, the UN Human Rights Committee has said as much in now quite infamous decision of [unintelligible]. The UN committee said it was a wake up call for Canada, so since that decision, the US Biden administration has issued an executive order that calls for legislative enquiry into what to do with these climate migrants. Canada can't just leave this issue on the table for much longer because it's a very, very growing issue in law and we have to be proactive because climate migration is already happening.

MG: Amali Tower, pick up on that. Why is that something that the Canadian and American governments need to take action on now?

AMALI TOWER: Well, for one thing, people, as WADA said, people are already on the move and they have been for a very long time. And the second thing is that, you know, both Canada and the United States are two of the greatest carbon and, you know, contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. So there is a a moral and a and a legal responsibility here. When you consider that the global south, the poorest in the world, migrants are paying the heaviest price for climate change, for global warming, for a situation that they've had almost no role in contributing towards. And as Warda has just said, there are no legal instruments that protect them and and to speak about this in terms of migration, which is largely framed in the context of voluntary or countries that tend to return people saying that they're here seeking better opportunities, what they like to say are economic migrants is to completely sidestep or overlook the complexities in which people are actually leaving, really fleeing. Today, 90 percent of the world's refugees come from countries that are the most vulnerable and the least ready to deal with the effects of climate change. I mean, if that doesn't speak to where the risks are, where the underlying complexities really are, and how multi causal this is, and that this really speaking about systemic failures, it's how inequality grows, poverty, you know, does the fact that people who are dependent on the land and natural resources for livelihood. When those things fail, Matt, where do you turn? As you heard in your other segment, you can be internally displaced, you can move internally, but if there are no jobs, if you've exhausted every single other option. Countries like to speak about adaptation. They're not even financing adaptation instead. Canada spent 15 times more on securing its borders, knowing fully well that migration is going to increase than it does towards climate finance. That it's far more far more than Canada is, right. So so that also speaks to how much both the U.S. and Canada knows that climate change is contributing towards migration and displacement, including cross border. And countries are struggling to secure their borders over actually protecting migrants. So this is a human security issue.

MG: I'm just going to say the White House put out a report on climate migration last month, and it came out of the National Security Council. What does that tell you?

AMALI TOWER: Well, that tells you exactly what I just said, but it shows you where the priorities are. It did not come from, for example, the State Department from the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, right? It came from the National Security Council now. It was a request of five mm. It was an interagency report and it was it was five government agencies that contributed towards that report. Civil society also had consultations. I wrote a report. Colleagues in civil society, we all wrote reports and there were a few conversations. And so that has- it certainly reflected in the Biden report, which I should add at this point is really just a summary of where we stand. There are no policy prescriptions, you know, much contrary to what what we had all thought was going to come forward. So we're still at very much a just sort of like in a waiting pattern.

MG: Warda, in the last minute or in a half or so that we have. I mean, if you take a look at the waiting pattern that O'Malley says, we as a world are in coming out of cop, what would you want the Canadian government to do? Part of this is about, it seems, reframing the issue, but there are also concrete steps that could be taken. So what would you want the Canadian government to do on this?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: As an organisation, the Canadian Association refugee lawyers would really want the government to focus on developing piloting at a point when the initial numbers are quite low. So because currently most of these numbers are in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, East Asia Pacific, North Africa and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Although the numbers of the displaced individuals on based on climate migrants are quite high, they are not currently in Canada. So what this provides us with is a key opportunity to get good sound policy in place now before we're in a place where we're reactive. This is a good opportunity for us to be proactive. So let's get our policy right. Let's get it right in advance of it being, you know, having to be reactive. So this is the time to do something and we have the political will. We have everybody focussed on this issue. Let's get it done.

MG: And what would that mean for someone like Mateo?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: For someone like Matteo, it would be it would mean getting these public policy classes, getting these pilot programmes off the ground. Let's look at our humanitarian policies. Let's look to see if there's a pilot we could get him in. Let's look at our humanitarian policy and see if there is, you know, specific instructions we can give to our immigration officers to consider folks who are here on the basis of climate induced effects to their homeland that they can't they can't be in their homeland because of environmental degradation. Let's put that into action and see how it goes for folks. And then if it works, let's roll out a larger programme. We can do that right now.

MG: It's good to speak with you both about this. Thank you very much.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Thank you very much for having me.

MG: Warda Shazade Meighen is a partner at Landing's Law, Amali Tower, the founder and executive director of Climate Refugees. Our ongoing coverage of COP26 and the climate crisis will continue tomorrow and next week. We'll have stories from the event itself, but also head north in this country and speak with people who are seeing some of the most dramatic changes firsthand. Old Crow, Yukon is above the Arctic Circle, but 250 people live there. The only way to get in is to fly. In 2019, it was the first Canadian indigenous community to declare a climate emergency and has pledged to be carbon neutral by the year 2030. Part of that is reducing its reliance on diesel that has to be flown in. Now, something unusual dots the landscape. Lorraine Netro is an elder in Old Crow.

SOUNDCLIP

It took some getting used to. I look out my front window and this is what I see. The solar project right on our berry patch, we had to make that decision as elders in this community. And how are we going to be part of this solution? When they were turned on this past spring and I felt a sense of pride.

MG: Dana Tizya-Tramm is the chief in Old Crow. The Nationals. Adrian Arsenal was there recently and talked to him about the changes he has seen in and around his community.

SOUNDCLIP

There are more lakes that have drained into the rivers. There are banks that have completely fallen. You'll see trees leaning over now what are called drunken forests. Willow species that are becoming very aggressive. Migration patterns of the caribou. One of our our main resources completely becoming ambiguous. We're seeing bird populations change reductions in insects. Everything that we can measure is changing and it's changing drastically.

MG: That's the chief and old crow Dana Tizya-Tramm. The strength and resilience of people in the North facing climate change that is next week on The Current. That is the current for today. Coming up next on CBC Radio One, its Q should mention tomorrow on the programme. As part of our continuing coverage of COP26, we'll speak with Mark Carney. He is the former governor of the Bank of Canada. He has been attempting to push the banking world to put climate first. We'll hear about those efforts and the suspicions that some people have about them. That's coming up tomorrow on this programme. We'll leave you today with more music by our guest Art Melody. This is a tune called Gomde. I'm Matt Galloway thanks for listening to this special edition of The Current, The Climate Migrants. We'll see you tomorrow.

SOUNDCLIP

[Song]

The Current Transcript for November 4, 2021

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

How climate change is driving migration, as people around the world face threats to their homes, livelihoods and food supplies - Bangladesh

Madagascar's 'climate-induced famine' forces people to eat locusts and cactus leaves to survive: advocate

This Burkina Faso farmer raps to highlight climate change's effects on agriculture

How climate change is driving migration, as people around the world face threats to their homes, livelihoods and food supplies - Guatemala

Thursday 4 November, 2021 Full Transcript

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