Kerry McCarthy – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2014-04-28.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the Government’s policy is on developing international frameworks and forums to provide refugees from climate-induced displacement with legal protection, including legally-worded definitions for such cases.

Mark Simmonds

The Government supports work to establish how existing international institutions and frameworks can be used to address climate change induced migration. Refugee status under existing international and EU legislation is based on the risk of persecution, and it is government policy to avoid developing separate frameworks that could duplicate or contradict this. The Government is also committed to securing an ambitious and legally-binding climate agreement next year at Paris COP 21 to limit the damage caused by anthropogenic climate change.