Researcher: It's Time for 'Climate Passports'

A prominent researcher is proposing establishing a "climate passport" for people driven from their homes by the impact of global warming, per the AP. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said Thursday the passport could be modeled on a similar certificate given to refugees of Russia's civil war in the 1920s. That so-called Nansen passport, which was later extended to other people who were made stateless after their citizenships were revoked, helped hundreds of thousands of people to find refuge elsewhere in the world. Schellnhuber's proposal, made on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Poland, is likely to face resistance from rich countries concerned about the possibility of climate refugees heading their way in the coming decades. (This remote Hawaiian island can relate.)