NEWS & BLOG

West London Welcome hosted a vital and wide-ranging conversation on climate justice, displacement and systemic inequality on June 10th. Chaired by Juliet Stevenson, actor and long-time activist on issues including refugees, human rights and the climate crisis, in conversation was Asad Rehman, current Executive Director of War on Want, incoming Chief Executive of Friends of the Earth UK, with WLW Trustee Antonia Benfield, immigration and asylum barrister at Doughty Street Chambers.

Our speakers explored how the climate crisis intersects with migration, displacement, colonialist legacies, and the failure of legal frameworks to meet the urgency of our time. This bold, unflinching exploration of civilisation in crisis made clear the urgent need to build solidarity across borders and movements.

You can watch the full recording of the event on our Youtube channel here.

Antonia Benfield: Legal frontiers and the limits of protection

Antonia Benfield’s analysis of the evolving legal landscape began with highlighting recent legal cases where courts have recognised environmental degradation as grounds for protection. For example, in Florence, Italy, a Pakistani man who was trafficked and came from a region of environmental degradation was granted protection by a Florence court. The judge recognised how climate collapse, poverty, and marginalisation made him particularly vulnerable and unable to return safely. In New Zealand, an elderly Eritrean couple was recognised as ‘vulnerable’ because the Eritrean government failed to protect them from climate impacts like inadequate housing and drought.

Despite these developments, Benfield emphasised the limitations of current refugee law. The threshold for refugee protection, as defined by the Refugee Convention, requires a well-founded fear of persecution based on specific grounds (race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion).Climate change-induced displacement typically does not fall neatly into any of the above categories, highlighting the need for legal reform or alternative frameworks to protect climate migrants more effectively.  Benfield noted that the 1951 Convention itself was originally designed to protect Europeans displaced after World War II. Only in 1967 was its scope widened geographically. Today, it remains largely inadequate in addressing the mass displacement driven by global warming. Amending these frameworks, she pointed out, would require enormous political will and consensus, making legal protection for climate migrants uncertain.

Benfield encouraged broadening our understanding of migration beyond asylum frameworks and focusing on creating systems to enable people to move with dignity. 

Asad Rehman: Climate justice and global inequality

Asad Rehman’s sweeping and impassioned critique of the global systems driving both climate breakdown and forced migration argued that climate change is not simply an environmental issue but one rooted in deep historical injustice. For climate justice movements, climate change is not a technical challenge to be solved with new technologies; it is a political crisis born of global inequality. He showed us how the people least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions are the ones being hit first and hardest by droughts, floods, and extreme temperatures.

“You cannot understand the climate crisis without understanding colonialism… It was European colonial powers that forced open economies, seized land, and built a global system that extracted wealth from the Global South to develop the ‘North.’”- Asad Rehman 

Rehman traced the roots of today’s crisis to this legacy of colonialism and racialized capitalism—a system designed to “revalue people, labour and nature itself.” He stressed that this legacy persists in modern economic structures, where the Global North continues to extract wealth from the many to enrich the few. This, he argued, has not only driven climate change but also severely limited our political imagination. 

“The greatest victory of neoliberalism is not just privatisation—it’s what it did to all of us. It took away our ability to imagine anything other than the market.” Ironically, he cited Milton Friedman: “only a crisis, actual or perceived, produces real change.” Rehman added, “Our job is to make the politically impossible become politically inevitable.”

He highlighted the staggering inequalities in global wealth. For Rehman, a global wealth tax is both a policy demand and a way of reimagining the economy and would benefit all justice movements: “a place of entry which allows us to think of the economy in a different way.”

“There can be no migrant justice without climate justice.”- Asad Rehman 

In several instances in the global south, one storm or flood alone can leave an entire population in starvation or leave millions of homes in ruin—not just due to environmental forces, but because of economic precarity, colonial legacies, and debt dependency. “Often this is not simply because of the storm, but because the state itself is unable to protect its citizens.” The catastrophic 2022 floods in Pakistan submerged a third of the country and displaced 30 million people. Over 2 million homes were destroyed and only $9 billion were secured in aid, most of which were loans. In contrast, Germany was able to spend €30 billion to reconstruct affected areas, 10,000 destroyed buildings and protect against future disasters after its flood just one year prior to Pakistan.

“It is said that Britain never spent a single pound of its own money on the expansion of its colonial rule. It was the colonies themselves that paid for their own conquest.”- Asad Rehman 

Rehman connected this to the “Doctrine of Discovery,” used to justify European colonisation and the seizure of Indigenous lands: “They believed some lives are worth more than others.” This ideology continues to shape our present. “In Palestine,” he said, “we can see whose lives matter more.” He quoted Colombian President Gustavo Petro: “What we see in Gaza is the rehearsal of the future.” Rehman warned that climate migrants may face the same fate if we fail to act now.

“How we treat migrants and refugees says a lot about our society.” – Asad Rehman 

Dominant narratives surrounding migration in climate discourse have often used fear-based language—“the floods are coming, they are coming”—to fuel division. Hence, problematic rhetorics are used to enhance calls for securitisation and militarisation. Instead, he advocates for narratives that “centre people” and foster solidarity through collective responsibility. 

Like Benfield, Rehman emphasised the limitations of the 1951 Refugee Convention for those displaced by environmental collapse. He cited the slow displacement already unfolding in Bangladesh due to rising sea levels, saltwater destroying crops, and increasingly uninhabitable land. “It often takes two or three extreme events before people move,” he said. First, they relocate to nearby areas or family homes. But eventually, there is no choice but to go further. These displaced people are often exploited for cheap labour—and then dismissed as “economic migrants.” But the catalyst here is survival.

“This is why we must build a movement of movements.” – Asad Rehman

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has made clear, what’s needed is not just carbon cuts, but a global compact for equality—public services, living wages, food security, and the right to stay. While the world still talks about preventing a rise of 1.5°C, Rehman reminded us that most scientists now expect we will exceed that threshold within the next five years. A 3°C world—within many of our lifetimes—would see the collapse of entire eco-systems, especially in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. This is not an abstract future. It’s here.

Despite decades of neoliberalism’s influence, Rehman expressed hope anchored in collective power: “Everything we’ve ever won is because ordinary people came together and decided enough is enough.” He calls for a radical reimagining of society—one based on the right to energy, water, food, movement and safety. He noted that neoliberalism has stripped public services and social protection, increased inequality, and heightened discontent. This isn’t limited to the Global South; the same forces impact the North, too. Solidarity across borders, he said, should not be seen as “charity” but as a shared fight.

“We are all on the Titanic about to drown, but we are not all in the same position; some are locked on the bottom decks drowning whilst others are still on the upper deck sipping our drinks.” – Asad Rehman 

Q&A: Hope in collective struggle

The evening concluded with a thoughtful Q&A session, guided by Juliet Stevenson, whose question—“How do you take on activism when you’re up against governments and billion-dollar corporations?”—captured a shared sense of overwhelm in the room.

Rehman responded directly: “We are up against entrenched and powerful systems. But rather than being paralysed by their scale, we have to focus on what we can do together.” He urged those in the room to join movements, organise, and never underestimate the power of collective action. “Everything we’ve ever won is because ordinary people came together and decided enough is enough,” he said, pointing to the importance of community-driven spaces like West London Welcome. “If we can change lives here, we can do it anywhere. But you can’t do it alone. Join an organisation, be part of a community, build something together.”

Another question asked how to unite different causes when crises—climate, inequality, and migration—feel overwhelming and fragmented. Rehman returned to a powerful image he’s used before: neoliberalism as a tapestry of injustice, stitched from a thousand threads. “But like any tapestry, if you pull the right thread, it starts to unravel. The challenge is to find those threads—the issues that connect us all.” Whether it’s the right to energy, food, social support, or climate protection, the path forward, he said, is convergence—a united front that sees all these struggles as connected.

He pointed to Brazil, where urban anti-poverty movements and forest defenders are no longer in competition for resources but fighting together. Shared demands like a global wealth tax, supported by unions and social movements across the Global South and North, offer a concrete and winnable starting point. “It’s only when we feel part of something bigger that we see real impact.” 

It may seem paradoxical to believe you as an individual can combat entrenched predatory economic practices, unjust laws and norms of hyper-consumerism which sustain the global wealth (justice) gap. Over time, many of us have become numb to its tangible and far-reaching effects. But as our speakers affirmed, we must remind ourselves that disconnect and apathy simply feed this cycle. The only solution is inclusion; to unite all fights, because they are not in conflict. Whether it is race, gender, migration, labour, food, climate, or taxation: invisibilising one harms them all. Without collective action, the continuation of generational and geographical oppression will persist. 

We must act now and together. An action as simple as becoming a volunteer, boycotting certain companies, listening to others’ stories or educating yourself on something new can have incredible impact. We have seen the interconnected effect of these choices at West London Welcome where this kind of solidarity creates tangible change everyday to so many lives.

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You can watch the full recording of the event on our Youtube channel here.

Nita Gula is Communications and Administrative Officer at West London Welcome.