12/13/19 12/13/19 democracy now! [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from the u.n. climate summit in madrid, spain, this is democracy now! >> with t this mandate and this majorityty, we will at last be able to do whatat? have been paying attention. this election means getting brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, theguable decision of

british people. amy: a landslide victory for the conservatives in the united kingdom, where prime minister boris johnson says brexit is now irrefutable. labour leader jeremy corbyn is stepping down. we'll speak with journalist george monbiot and priya gopal, author of "i"insurgent empire: anticolonialal resistance e and british dissent." then, copout 25? "while deadly droughts, flooding, cyclones, and wildfires rage outside the u.n. climate summit center,r, the rih countries momost responsible f r the climate emerergency have spt the tatalks dialg g back ambitin and blocking progress." that's what activists, scientists, indigenous and grassroots climate leaders are charging in the last days of this year's climate conference. we'll also look at how global heating g is already d displacig tens of millions of people.

>> what we are witnessing around the world is the climate crisis isn't just raising sea levels, it is forcing people to leave their homes. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are reporting from the u.n. climate summit in madrid, spain. in global news, the united kingdom, prime minister boris johnson, and his conservative party won a landslide victory during thursday's decisive national election, dealing a devastating blow to jeremy corbyn's labour party. corbyn has said he will step down as head of the party after a "period of reflection." the conservatives are projected to win 364 seats in the british house of commons, versus only

203 for the labor party. this would give the conservatives the largest majority since 1987 when margaret thatcher was in power. this is labour shadow chancellor jojo mcdonnellll. >> i know they are heartbreaking. so am i. they worked very hard. it isn't down to them or any lack of commitment. brexit was the issue for us. amy: the conservative party's sweeping victory all but guarantees brexit -- britain's departure from the european union -- early next year. the party won resoundingly despite prime minister bororis johnson being g accused of islamophobobia, xenophobia, and sexual harassment. we'll have more on the british elections after headlines. we will speak with british journalist george monbiot and lecturer priya gopal. on capitol hill, the chairman of the house judiciary committee, jerry y nadler, unexpectedly

called off a vote on the two articles of impeachment against president trump after a 14-hour debate in the committee thursday. >> along today's of consideration -- along two days and it is a late night. i want members on both sides to think about what is happening over these last two days and to search the consciences before we cast our final votes. amy: congressmember jerry nadler has now rescheduled the vote for today at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. the first article of impeachment, abuse of power, centers on how president trump withheld military aid from ukraine to pressure the ukrainian president to investigate trump's political rival joe biden and his son hunter. democratic lawmakers say trump then tried to cover up his actions, leading to the second article of impeachment obstruction of congress. , democracy now! will be livestreaming the impeachment hearing today at our website democracynow.org.

in algeria, thousands of people have taken to the streets of the capital to denounce thursday's presidential election as a farce. fall. elections must these people are the election. no two elections in these condnditions. these people are heroes. amy: activists called for people to boycott thursday's presidential election to replace algeria's longtime president abdelaziz bouteflika, who was forced from power by a mass uprising in april. there was record-low participation in thursday's election and early results suggest no candidate received the 50% of votes needed to win outright. protesters say all five candidates represent a continuation of algeria's corrupt ruling elite. earlier this week, two previous algerian prime ministers were convicted and sentenced to prison over a corruption scandal that also ensnared other top government officials and businessmen in algeria.

burma's de facto leader aung san suu kyi has asked the international cot t of justice at thehe hague to drop thehe genocide case against burma. >> i request the couourt to reme in thee from its list alteternative to reject the provisional measures s submitte. amy: during the international court hearings, the former nobel peace prize winnerer repeatedly tried to deny y the burmese military has carried o out gegenocide against the muslim rohingya, althouough she never once used the word "rohingya" during her speeches. the burmese military killed and raped thousands of rohingya and forced more than 700,000 to flee into neighboring bangladesh in a brutal army crackdown in 2017. in india, police killed at least two protesters amid massive demonstrations against the citizenship amendment bill, which many have denounced as a major step toward the official

marginalization of india's 200 million muslims. the upper house of parliament has passed the highly controversial legislation, which provides a path to citizenship for immigrants from afghanistan, bangladesh, and p pakistan -- unleless they are e muslim. ththe government has also arresd hundreds of protesters, cut off internet access, imposed curfews in parts of northeast india amid ongoing protests against the citizenship bill. in iraq, thousands of anti-government protesters have gathered in baghdad's tahrir square to demand the nationwide protest movement in iraq remain peaceful and to condemn the brutal killing of a teenager on the 16-year-old was stabbed thursday. to death and his body wawas strg up from a traffic pole after rumors circulated that he had killed a number of anti-government demonstrators. it appeaears he had actually fid a gun into the air to try to convince demonstrators to stop protesting near his family's

home. police officers stood by during the teenager's killing and allowed it to take place. the leaders of the ongoing protests quickly condemned the attack. meanwhile, the united nations has condemned the iraqi government for killing, arresting, and abducting anti-government protesters during the ongoing demonstrations. security forces and militias have killed over 400 protesters and human rights advocates say a number of prominent activists have been disappeared. in france, protests are continuing today as workers remain on strike to protest french president emmanuel macron's pension overhaul. unions are vowing to continue the strike into the holiday period, saying the proposal to effectively raise the retirement age is a reded line thatat canne crossed. this is 31-year-old train conductor cecile larrouture who is participating in the strike.

>> i continue to fight for our pensions because what the prime minister said was rubbish. it is a blatant smokescreen. they want to divide and conquer. they want to divide the generations. amy: in hong kong, thousands of people took to the streets thursday to mark six months since the pro-democracy protest movement's first major clash with pololice, whehen they prevd -- when demonstrators prevented lawmakers from advancing an extradition bill that sparked the protests. while the extradition bill has since been scrapped, the demonstrtrations have continuedo rock h hong kong, with neaearlya million people marching this past sunday to demand more democracy. this is a college student at thursday's march. >> this movement is just the beginning.

[indiscernible] government is very evil and against the human rights. states,k in the united the shocking department of homeland security memo obtained by buzzfeed news reveals how inadequate medical care contributed to the deaths of at least four immigrants in the custody of immigration, customs, enforcement them or ice most the memo includes revelations from an ice whistleblower about how one man died from meningitis after grossly negligent care. the whistleblower also said official reports on one of t the four deaeaths were very misleading. the dhs memo also includes reports of immigrants being administered incorrect medication or being grossly inadequate medical care, they had have preventable surgeries. one of the victims of medical neglect was an eight-year-old child whose rare infection kull wasis s

misdiagnosed as a near infection. the child had to have his frontal bone surgically removed. and president trump has attacked 16-year-old swedish climate activist greta thunberg, who has just been named "time magazine" person of the year gal. she's the youngest person to ever receive the honor. on thursday, trump attacked the teenager on twitter, tweeting -- "greta must work on her anger management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! chill greta, chill!" in response to president trump's attack, greta changed her twitter bio to mock the president of the united states, writing -- "a teenager working on her anger management problem. currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend." trump's twitter spat with the teenager comes after president

trump did not win "time magazine" person of the year last year, instead being named runner up. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. nermeen: and i am nermeen shaikh. we are broadcasting from inside the u.n. climate change summit here in madrid, spain. but we begin today's show in the united kingdom, where the conservative party has won a decisive majority in the highly anticipated general election, winning seats in labour party strongholds and all but guaranteeing britain's exit from the european union by january. amy: in the labour party's worst electoraral defeat and 84 years, the conservatives aree projected to win 364 feet in the brititi house of commons versus only 203 for the labour party. this would give the conservatives the largest majority since 1987 when margaret thatcher was in power.

and because this is prprime minister boris johnson addressing the nation this morning. >> with his mandatate and ththis majoririty, we will at last be able to do what? you have been paying attentntio. this election means getting brexit done is now the irrefutable, irresistible, unarguable decision of the british people. timell get brexit done on by the 31st of january. no if's, no vets, no babies. asving the european union one united kingdom, taking back control of our laws, , borders,, money, our trade, immigration system, delivering on the democratic mandate of the people . and at the same time, this one nation conservative government will massively increase our , thetment in the n nhs

health service that represents the very best of our country with single beautiful idea. amy: it marks a crushing defeat for jeremy corbyn, he said thursday night he would step down as the parties leader after a period of reflection. social justice and the issues of needs are people will not go away just because brexit is dealt with in a way which boris johnson presumably plans to do with it at the moment. all of those issues will come back centerstage in the debate in the fundamental labor message about justice inequality within our society is going to be one that is there for all time because it is the very core of what my party believes in and what i will always advocate on behalf of my constituency and on behalf of my party. i want to also make it clear that i will not lead the party

in any official general election campaign. nermeen: it also delivered a decisive win for scottish national party leader nicola sturgeon who said friday the election was "an overwhelming endorsement of a s second referendum on scottish independence." in thisg gotten, -- gotten, jo swinson has stepped out after losing her seat in an election night that left her party with only 11 seats. amy: for tomorrow what this election means for brexit, the climate crisis, national healthcare, and much more, we are joined by two guests. we go to e england, in oxford, where we are joined by george monbiot, columnist for the guardian and author of "out of the wreckage: a new politics for an age of crisis." and joining us via video stream from india is priya gopal, university lecturer in the faculty of english at the university of cambridge and author of the new book "insurgent empire: anticolonial resistance & british dissent."

george monbiot, let's go to you in oxford first. if you could respond to what took place in your country? dayell, it is a very dark for everyone who believes in justice, for everyone here who wants a kind of fair, greener nation. arguably, the darkest day that we have had since the end of the second world war in this cocountry. have now stepped into the same political arena as the u.s. has modi,rump, india has with the philippines have with duterte, and brazil with bolsonaro. these are very dangerous times. just when we need to confront the greatest predicament humankind has ever faced, which is the collapse of our life-support system, our governments are in the hands of giant toddlers who just want to

smash up all of our public protections, our public services , any means by which the power of capital and those who accumulate it can be restrained. george, can you speculate about what you think accounts for the scale of the victory? many thought that boris johnson would win this election, but not by such a major landslide. there are several factors. one is that they have learned from trump, they have learned from modi, they have learned from the referendum result in u.k. three years ago, basically, cheating and lying wins, particularly when you can weaponize it through social media on a massive scale with unaccountable dark ads were nobody knows what anybody is seeing. that is a highly effective and highly dangerous tactic.

and they have refined it and refined it so that it is now winning elections all over the world. these are really perilous times for democracy. we also had an opposition in the form of the labour party that was internally divided that did not help at all. for far too long to articulate a clear position on brexit. it failed to do with some of its own crises, particularly the anti-semitism crises -- which it should have moved on much more swiftly and firmly that it did. but we also -- it was really swimming against the tide, particularly the power of the billionaire press in this country, the enormous amount of funding ported to the conservative party, and a series of other democratic -- undemocratic forces that aligned with the radical right now, which has taken over the

conservative party. , you're usually at cambridge university. you're in india. it is certainly interesting to see britain from that perspective as well. were you surprised by the results of the election? and what message do you think that it sent? in india,a, where we just had the citizenship amendment bill where authoritarian n forces hae won thehe elelection fofor the d timeme earlier thihis year. i think wewe see britainin as te latest footnote, if f you l lik, and what george jusust referredo as the globabal perilous state that democracy i is in. what we'rere seeing is t the authoritariaian v vicrampagingg across the globe, anand in a wa, britain has simply joined andazil, india, anand hungary

the usa. it is inteteresting g to see whs happening in britain in a global context, and that should worry us very greatly. could you talk specifically about what george said about the labour party itself being internally divided? and also, the fact the party does not quite represent the working classes w were s abandonened by the working classes. do yougrgree with ththat? -- ii think it is greatly y overstated. numbersrs, demographicscs. ththink wheneoplple s l labour was debated by the working classes, thehere often making a slightlyacacialized d statement. what they're saying isis people who consider themselves white and so-called indigenous britain have voices against migigrants d

etetic minoritities. it is important to poioint out e working clclasses in britaiain,e the workrking classeses prty muh i is n homogenous. it consists of different communitiess and releligions. there is no yardstick by whihich you can say bour w was abandoned as a whole b bthe working classes. we don't know t that for sure. even with her brexit referendu the working clasass i would say were divided. yes, certaininly for strongholds [indiscernrnible] and to margaret platform, which of --rthered by the kinds of on the part of the media that george refer to earlier. yes, the party is divided against itself but it is also not just a clear position on brexit, but failed to educate people, failed to educate their own constituency

about what sort of lies have been spread, particularly the lies that austerity somehow was the responsibility of europe when in fact the austerity that people were pushing back against is very much a tory program. it was a very successful lie. because they do not take a position on brexit early on, they fell to educate their own constituencies about brexit. i think that has resulted -- at the end of the day. , gary youngmonbiot writes in the guardian "labor will now have to face the fact that the electorate did not abandon labor for the center. they want either to the far right in england and wales, social democratic nationalist alternative in scotland." you have called this the climate election. you think that is what this was about? >> it is really disappointing

that for the first time, we had some very strong c climate and enenronmentall policies in t the platforms of several of the major parties. and that to me was quite exexciting. you would hardly have known it from the media coverage. it was scarcely touched on. just as the politicians are finally taking these issues seriously, the media, as always, turns its back on them and looks the other way and talks about brexit and talks about immigration and the economy and crime and all the old 20th century issues. mean, it is great opportunity we had. finally, to take action on our has onceever crisis more been lost. and that is tremendously disappointing. i don't -- welcome august, i don't trust johnson on anything, but i particularly do not trust

him on environmental issues. his whole shtick is to give t te oligarchchs whatever t they wan, whether they are onshore oligarchs or offshore oliligarc. he in tutu supports s them. and they want a free hand to treat the living planet as dustbin and to treat thehe peope of the planet as theheir underpd and exploitive workforce were consumers. so the idea that he w would be a champion of environmnment on valueses, unfortunately, is a vy remote hope indeed. return to prime minister doris johohon -- boris johnson speaking. >> you voted to be carbon neutral in this election. you voted to be carbon neutral by 2050. and we will do it. you also voted to be carbon neutral by christmas. we will do that, too.

amy: george monbiot, if you would respond to what he just said? >> that is the government's official position, carbon neutral by 2050. it is far too little, far too late. we unfortunately -- the science tells us -- amy: carbon neutral. >> well, that is boris johnson with his silly soundbites. have learned in this election is you cannott believe a word that johnson says. he is a liar. he lies and lies and lies and cheats and lies and cheats and lies. so if he says we are going to be carbon neueutral by 2050, it is not true because nothing he says is true. he will say whatever he needs to say to get throuough the situatn that he happens to be in. but it is up to us, those of us who are now the resistance in

this country -- that is how i see as -- to fight him every step of the way, whether it is on environmental c climate issu, critical that we do so, whether it is on social justice issues whether it is on the defense of our public services. we will fight him and fight him and we will develop alternatives and we will resist and we will rebuild and we will come out of this stronger than before. but we are going to have to show a lot of unity. we're going to have to drop the recriminations, invest in solidadarity, invest in mumutual aid, help each other out of this appalling mess that we have fallen into in the u.k. we can do that, but we're going to have to climb out of a pretty deep well of despair first. nermeen: george, can you explain what the implications of force johnson's electoral win is? this massive majority that the conservatives have won.

the results mean that johnson will be the most powerful prime minister since tony blair won a landslide for labour in 1997. what do you anticipate johnson will do with this landslide? what kinds of legislation will he put forward? >> johnson has no vision for the country. he has a vision for a particular powerful class who are basically oligarchs. extremely rich people who use their money come often unrecorded, to fund the lobby groups, to fund the conservative party directly, to fund our equivalent of political action committees - -- which are just beginning to take off in the u.k. -- to get what they want. hass feeding their he -- he been in their pocket. he knows they want and offshore deregulated economy, public protections toned down, public services are ripped open to competition with the private

sector or indeed, to direct privatization and capture by the privatate sector. an environment of regulationons will go to the wall because those restrict the ability of the oligarchs to make even more money. they want to be able to dump their polluters. they want to be able t to seize natural wealth without paying for it. we are in a very dangerous position indeed because this charlatan, this liar, this cheat has taken power with a massive countntry. this and we don't even havee the brakes on the e systemem that yu have in the u. at least there are institutional means of resisting donald trump -- not least, congress. we don't have any such breaks because we don't have a clear separation of powers in this country. we don't have a formal constitution in this country. basically, a prime minister with a large majority can take almost

sovereign powers. he can capture the old powers that the monarch used to have stopped this is a very perilous situation, indeed. couldriya gopal, if you talk more about labor leader jeremy corbyn who says he is going to step down after a period of reflection the party goes through. where do you think they should be focusing? what do you think he and we should look over all of the labour party did right and wrong? and also, what do you think this means about the balance of power with britain? mean, with brexit about to happen and both boris johnson and trump such close allies, what that alliance will mean? but start with jerememy corbyn. two jereremyere are corbrbyns. there is jeremy corbrbyn the man , like any o other l local

leader, , he has made hihis mistakes.. helsoo had a vision for reformrmed dememocratic system d put ththe idea out there. i think we should acknowledgdg the e extremely right-t-wing perilous timemes we in many countries even an alternative [indiscernible] did put forth a viable alternativive, a progressive vision. , mistakesorbyn the man and d failures notwithstanng, i think is owed a debt t of gratititud for p putting an alteternative out there. there's also jeremy corbyn the media man. i think we should not underestimate how deeply vicious the media in britain has been. --the construction of corbyn

notwithstanding is not handling of the anti-semitism. has even been- he described on the bbc as a blazing ideologue, which is ludicrous given he is essentially a fairly social democrat from a middle-of-the-road social democratic reform. there are two jeremy corbyns. and one is owed a debt of thanks. largers of the ther picture, we have seen lininkedarcece of grgrps aiming [indiscerblble]

ththe l locked out k kashmir.. what we do see is a globalal rig wing. we see trump more or less interfere with b britishlectoral politics. we've seen right wiwing interfee with politicics in ways that i thinkk [ [indiscernible]e] i think need to be on alerert for whwhat is happening internationally and on a globabl scalale and the extent to whichh right-wing forces, a authoritarn forcrc are working hand-in-hand which already bolstster wororse johnson and his damaging program that is ahead of us now. , right now monbiot

we're just looking at an article hassan, whoby betty wrote about what this means, particularly for muslims, for women. he wrote -- "dark day for minorities in the u.k. especially for british muslims who watched as a man who said 'islam was the problem,' mocked veiled muslim women, and also turned a blind eye to massive anti-muslim hatred in his party, was just given a landslide majority by their fellow britons." george, your response? >> it is a long time since we have had an overtly racist prime minister in this country. there have been dog whistle racist, but in this case, he just comes o out and s says it - similar to the way trump does. this is a very frightening time,

indeed. the stuff he said about muslims, the stuff he said about people of color. anand then in ththe manifesto, d natural stated commitment effectively to wipe out another threatened group, which are the roman egyptians and travelers in this country who are protected ethnic group. there were also subject to the holocaust. about 500,000 were killed by the here they are in the conservative manifesto that basically y says we are goiningo drdrive them out, we are going o engage in a cultural cleansing from effectively, of these people from our country. and either they're going to go and just live in houses and not pursue their culture anymore, or they're going to be in prison. we're going to jail them for pursuing their culture. he could bee no more -- it could not be more blatant. moreuld not be

terrifying. it is there in black and white in their platform. really, really frightening. a we know whenever he runs into trouble, johnson is going to use xenophobia and racism and scapegoating of immigrants, of muslims, of the poor and the romans anderal of travelers in particular, he will use that to deflect attention from the many problems he's going to run into, particularly as he tries to implement brexit, particularly as a man of his lies and cheating are exposed. is going to turn it toward the classic scapegoating of minority peoples with potentially very frightening implications for those peoples. it is up to all of us who believe in social justice to stand in solidarity with those peoples and defend them from the

inevitable attacks. nermeen: george, we just have a minute, but if you could comment on what you think the majority, the massive majority of the tories means for scotland? does this mean there will be a second referendum or that there ought to be on independence? there, i'm pretty sure will be. certainly, the scots will be pushing for a very h hard now. scototland was very much anti-brexit. the large majority once to stay in the european union. with independence, they would be able to do that, they would be able to become an independent member of the european union and they want to be in a position of having the block of concrete, which is the u.k., thrown out of the boat with her ankle attached to it. which is how is going to be with them for brexit if they stay within the union, within the

united kingdom. i would be surprised if scotland doeses not leave the united kingdom before long. eventuallyonally -- see northern ireland going the same way. that is a possibility. we are looking at the breakup of the united kingdom, which is not necessarily a bad thing. i support the scots and the pursuit of independence, but it is just one of the many implications of these really volatile times which we now face. amy: we have 30 seconds for inya gopal in india, usually cambridge, england. he tweeted -- what did you hope t this point? in india,e organizingg for instance,r r the situtuation is extmely d dire. calling g for civil disobedience

againsnst the discrimininatory w againsnst muslims. people calling on civil seanants and police offfficers resisignig from their p positions. people refusing to accept what is happening in kashmir. alliances tog stand between the states and the populations. and people making alliances across civil society organizationons, indigenous peoples who are standing up to protect resources. i thihink we need alliances witi countries s and acrossss countrs and wewe need to resist. civil disobedience i think would be a very good start. amy: priya gopal, thank you for being with us university , lecturer in ththe faculty of english at the university of cambridge. her new book is "insurgent empire: anticolonial resistance & british dissent." , journalist,nbiot author, columnist with the guardian. his most recent book is titled "out of the wreckage: a new

politics for an age of crisis." when we come back , we look at rich countries in the final summit.the u.n. climate stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: adagio in g minor "albinoni's adagio" performed by the london philharmonic and david parry. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we're broadcasting from inside the u.n. climate summit here in

madrid, spain. nermeen: "while deadly droughts, flooding, cyclones and wildfires rage outside the confererence center, the rich countries most responsible for the climate emergencncy have spent the talks dialing back amamtion and blocking progress." that is what activists and climate experts here at the u.n. climate summit charge. talks are wrapping up after two weeks of negotiations without crucial l commitmements from the coununtries most resesponsible r global e emissionsns. amamy: this week, more than 70 developing countries have announced they will accelerate their climate plans and 72 countries have signed onto goals to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. but major carbon emitters australia, china, india, brazil and saudi arabia have made no such promises, while the u.s. is slated to pull o out of the pars agagreement entirely by next ye. nermeen: a new study finds the climate crisis is already leading to a massive increase in the number of refugees being

displaced around the world. in berkeley, california, we're joined by policy analyst with the global justice program at the othering and belonging institute at the university of california, berkeley. he is the co-author of the new report "climate refugees: the climate crisis and rights denied." amy: and here in madrid, spain, we are joined by saleemul huq, climate scientist and the director of the international center for climate change and development in bangladesh. advising the bloc of least developed countries in the climate negotiations. we welcome you both to democracy now! begin withq, let's you. you have, as so many have said, the climate emergencies taking place around the world right now. you have got the wildfires in australia. you have got the floods. you have the droughts. you have got climate i gratian at a level -- migration at a level we have not seen. what is happening here? is this a copout?

and what role is the u.s. playing? -- 2019nk the year 29th in hindsight will be seen as the tipping point when human induced climate change became a reality. we can attribute many of the things you just said, the magnitude of them being the over anything we've seen before. and that cannot be attributed to the fact we have already increased global temperature by well over what degree centigrade and that is already having an impact. and we are headed for three degrees and nowhere near the 1.5 degrees we want. what we are seeing an reality is the ampex are causing damage, loss of life, loss of biodiversity. what we need from the parties to do is step up to the challenge that has been given from the rest of the world, particularly the young children of the world who were out in madrid. half-million were out on friday. i don't see a lot of signs of the negotiators responding to that.

the u.s. in particular is been difficult. amy: on the one hand, trump is pulling the u.s. out of the climate conference. but they are also, as each day goes by, working to dilute any kind of lead up to n next year, the evaluation of the paris climate record. >> the specific technical point here in madrid and the 25th conference of parties is something called a review of the warsaw mechanism. on loss and damage. the developing countries have a united front. we want that review to take it forward with an implementation arm and a finance arm. and the finance part is something the u.s. is completely against. so far we have not got a decision on that. amy: explained finance. >> funding for loss and damage as opposed to funding for adaptation and mitigation. amy: most people don't really get it. >> basically, giving some funding to the victims for the impacts of climate change that

we are now seeing, allowing funding to be raised for the victims. nermeen: if you could just give a broader sense -- we have been coming to the climate summit for many years, as have you. many people argue that even though the pace of change is very, very slow, it is an important venue for developing countries to be able to express in solidarity their position to the richer countries. what do you see is the significance of these annual meetings where it seems every year very little gets achieved that is in the interest of the people who have been suffering the most from the effects of the climate crisis? >> we live in unjust and unequal world. as the vulnerable poor countries, least deveveloped countries i advisis, including my country bangladesh, this is the only game in town where we have a seat t at the table, whee we can actually say something and hope the other side will listen. a lot of the time theyey don't

listen, but sometimes they do. we hope we get them to listen in the next few hours we have left here. amy: explain what is happening in bangladesh. >> is one of the most vulnerable to impacts of climate change. we live on the delta of two of the major rivers. we have a population of 160 million plus living in less than 160 square kilometeters. very vulnerable. very generally poor. nevertheless, one of the most resilient countries. we have one of the best cyclone warning shelter systems in the world. we can mourn and evacuate more than 2.5 million people. arere struggling but we rising to the challenge of dealing with the impacts of climate change. but there's a limit to what we can do. 1.5 degrees we can manage. three degrees, we cannot. amy: when we come back from this

break, we will talk about the massive crisis of climate migration. we are talking millions and millions of people. the number is only promising to grow. we are with saleemul huq from the bangladeshi climate movement, a climate scientist joining us also will be hossein ayazi at the university of california berkeley who just left but did read or hear on climate refugees -- but did a report here on climate refugees. ♪ [music break]

amy: "en el rio" by amaral. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are broadcasting from inside the u.n. climate summit here in madrid, spain, in the last few days of this climate summit that people are calling a copout, that we inside the climate summit have seen mast protests and still it limps along an

outside, the number of people who are so affected by the climate catastrophe. nermeen: a new study finds the climate crisis is already leading to a massive increase in the number of refugees being displaced around the world. in berkeley, california, we're joined by hossein ayazi, policy analyst with the global justice program at the othering and belonging institute at the university of california, berkeley. he is the co-author of the new report "climate refugees: the climate crisis and rights denied." and still with us here in madrid is saleemul huq, climate scientist and the director of the international center for climate change and development in bangladesh. he is advising the bloc of least developed countries in the climate negotiations. hossein ayazi, could you lay out what you found in this report on climate refugees? how many are there? what countries are the worst affected? so we are finding in the

report that permanent and short-term displacement due to the climate crisis is only increasing. in 2018, for example, of the 28 million new displaced persons, over 17 million were displaced due to weather-related natural disasters. these displacements are by and large across the global south. one you would only look to the droughts and pakistan, the floods in india, the crop failures and droughts in the central american corridor that was behind the central american migration caravanans thahat dominanated new cycles lastst y. is althoughinding we generally refer to climate displaced persons as climate refugees, this is actually not legally recognized term. this is not a term within internationanal refugee

protections. in fact, the u.n. high commissioner for refugees does not officially endorse the term "climate refugees." issues emblematic of the at large. across international refugee law and human rights law and humanitarian law and other bodies of law, protections for climate refugees are limited piecemeal and by and large not legally binding. nermeen: amy: so you were here? >> no, i was not at cop. amy: but some of your colleagues were. this issue of climate refugees right now. how does what is happening inside the u.n. climate summit affect what is happening outside? this discussion we are having with you about climate refugees. and if you can talk about, for example, what you mean by petro persecution?

>> i will start with your second question. petro persecution is the main notion that we are advancing within the report. it is the term basically we have identified a major barrier in negotiations toward refugee protections for climate refugees. it is in order to obtain refugee status, when needs to cross international borders due to real risk of persecution on the basis of one's race, ethnicity, religion, other circumstances. notion of persecution within refugee law assumes that the source of persecution, the actor, the persecutor, is either one's country of origin -- the government -- or internal to one's country of origin. this is not how forced migration under the climate crisis works. in fact, when we think of forced migration under the climate

crisis, it is ultimately impossible to tie a specific climate-related natural disaster ofa specific actor persecution, whether it is corporation, fossil fuel corporations, or fossil fuel-dependent industrial processes. additionally, many of the countries that are at greatest risk of the effects of the climate crisis are in fact working hard to protect their own populations to keep them in place, to ensure they have the livelihoods to remain in place. and so what we're trying to do with this notion of petro persecution is, one, dealing with the notion of persecution from territory. i that i mean ththe climate cris is a global phenomenon. we need to recognize it as such within international refugee law. the second thing we want to advance within this notion of theo persecution is that actor of persecution is actually our global dependence upon fossil fuels and the global

investment patterns behind this dependence. nermeen: your report does not just look at climate refugees in the sense of people who are across borders, but also people who been forced to flee within countries, internally displaced people. could you talk about that? why did you find? how many people are affected and where? migrations duet to the climate crisis and must migration and forced migration in general is internal. this is something that we state clearly in the report. that is people displaced internally do have the legally to -- the ability ability to resettle within their country of origin and stay put. and the issue we found in the report is that while internally

displaced peoples do have the means for recourse and redress in some way or another, that this is not all the case for people forced to cross international borders. when we discuss refugees, whether climate refugees or not, we are really talking about movement across international borders and how as a certain islandnd nations, for example, e at r risk for cocomplete inundan or the certification makes countries in habitable, the people are forced to flee their country and there's no place for them to resettle at home. this is the major gap in international refugee laws that we are shining a light on. amy: and food refugees? of food refugees is one that we are using to define people, communities displaced due to growing food insecurity. this can be due to a number of dynamics.

it could be land grabs or natural resource grabs, seed monopolies, international free trade agreements -- basically, what people might describe as the corporate regime or corporate food system. and this structural vulnerability that communities face as a result of this larger system actually intersects with the climate crisis in the sense that natural disasters exacerbated by the climate crisis force people to -- force already vulnerable peoples to search elsewhere for sustainable livelihood. while we recognize the term climate refugees different from food refugee, that you are really interrelated and need be recognized as both distinct categories yet fundamentally inseparable. amy: very quickly, before we end, saleemul huq, this year we are in madrid, spain. next year, glascow.

what do you expect to happen in this time -- or does it even matter what happens here? is it the action in the streets, the only thing that makes a difference, like the young climate activists by the millions going on school climate strike demanding that their leaders pay attention? >> i think it still matters. i think it does matter because this is where the leaders are. this is where the leaders are negotiating. they have to listen to their own kids were on the street shouting at them and telling them they are ruining their own kids future. so we are still hopeful they will listen between now and glascow. we hope we get a result in madrid on the particular issue i'm concerned about, get a funding mechanism for loss and damage open up a discussion so we can come back to it and glascow and see whether or not we can make it happen. we not asking for it to happen here. we are asking for it to be allowed to have a next year and glascow. we hope -- amy: we want to thank you both for being with us. saleemul huq,

climate scientist and the director of the international center for climate change and development in bangladesh. hossein ayazi, policy analyst and co-author of the new report, "climate refugees: the climate crisis and rights denied." we will link to that report at democracynow.org. that doesn't proud cover tear on-site at the 25th united nations climate change summit. we want to say a special thanks to our crew here in madrid. we will letet them spspeak thein nanames in their own words - -- democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

[man singing in spanish] sami: finnish crooner reijo taipale sang about the land of fairy tales in the year of 1963. by thehen, finlandnd had alrdydy been intoxicated by tango for 3 decades. in the early days of the twentieth century, tango drifted to the nordic shores on e backs of sailors andnd traveling music men. i first got interested in this music when i heard