Asad Rehman on the Making of the Climate Refugee

A global Green New Deal must enshrine people’s right to move – but also their right to stay, says Asad Rehman, executive director of anti-poverty charity War on Want.

In an extended interview from Planet B: Everything Must Change, Rehman talks to Dalia Gebrial about the emergence of the ‘climate refugee’ – and how this narrow definition will help countries in the global north to shirk their obligations to displaced people.

Touching on the ideology of eco-fascism and how it permeates “common sense” politics across the divide, Rehman warns of the vast displacement faced by billions around the world yet largely ignored by western media.

An extract from this interview appears in the fifth episode of Planet B, a series made with Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung London and based on the book Perspectives on a Global Green New Deal – order a free copy here.

Produced by Freddie Stuart.
Music and sound by Ben Heyderman.
Illustrations by Tomekah George.
Design by Pietro Garrone.