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Good morning.

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of you for your participation and to appreciate your presence with us here today, and warmly welcome all of you to this briefing on migration, environment and climate change.

At the very outset, let me thank the Permanent Missions of Bangladesh and France for co-hosting this event.

Let me say that it is indeed very timely that we are all meeting here today, taking place just a little over two weeks after United Nations Member States reached a historical agreement at the High Level Signing Ceremony of the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. I understand that as of the 28^th of April, a total of 177 parties already signed the agreement, including 176 Member States and the European Union.

This is indeed a landmark achievement by all accounts, and it was rightly so described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as a vote of confidence in a new approach to climate change. It is imperative that the strong political momentum that has been achieved continues to grow and that it marks the next step on our shared journey to meet the climate challenge.

I think this has been well-said, that this will prepare all of us that reaching an agreement in Paris and here in New York is not the end, but rather a beginning to all of the work here to come.

Let me then take this opportunity to thank France for its leadership that allowed the international community to arrive at its consensus in Paris. And from now on it is the duty of all governments of the world, the private sector and civil society – and for that matter every citizen – to invest in the global action climate agenda and to move forward with it.

IOM would like to take this opportunity to renew our commitment to the pursuit of an ambitious climate change agenda, and to facilitate the adoption of migration not as a survival but as an adaptation strategy to climate change – so it is not just emergency flight, but contribution to disaster risk reduction. And, making sure that this orderly approach is to calamities arising from climate change and natural disasters which are recurrent in many parts of the world

And also to addressing the effects of climate change in terms of increasing temperatures, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and desertification – which, as I said, are frequently happening. And for all these reasons together IOM made climate change an institutional priority and here we created a division dedicated to addressing climate change issues and to dealing with MECC. The head of that div DI is here with us today and you will hear from her later today. And that dev comes at the conclusion of a long-standing commitment that IOM has engaged on for more than 22 years in terms of research, data gathering, capacity building, development, evaluation, etcetera. Again, I would like to welcome all of you – we are very pleased to have all of you here with us and we hope it will be the beginning of a conversation on larger climate action constituency to make sure the nexus between migration, environment and climate change is understood and pursued as an agenda for change. And to make sure that climate change agenda will be well-integrated into the other pillars of the newly emerging transformative agenda that the UN is driving to make sure migration will be what it is meant to be – a positive driver of development with possibilities for maximizing the benefits of migration and minimizing any negative effects.

Good morning.

First and foremost, I would like to thank all of you for your participation and to appreciate your presence with us here today, and warmly welcome all of you to this briefing on migration, environment and climate change.

At the very outset, let me thank the Permanent Missions of Bangladesh and France for co-hosting this event.

Let me say that it is indeed very timely that we are all meeting here today, taking place just a little over two weeks after United Nations Member States reached a historical agreement at the High Level Signing Ceremony of the Paris Agreement under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. I understand that as of the 28^th of April, a total of 177 parties already signed the agreement, including 176 Member States and the European Union.

This is indeed a landmark achievement by all accounts, and it was rightly so described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations as a vote of confidence in a new approach to climate change. It is imperative that the strong political momentum that has been achieved continues to grow and that it marks the next step on our shared journey to meet the climate challenge.

I think this has been well-said, that this will prepare all of us that reaching an agreement in Paris and here in New York is not the end, but rather a beginning to all of the work here to come.

Let me then take this opportunity to thank France for its leadership that allowed the international community to arrive at its consensus in Paris. And from now on it is the duty of all governments of the world, the private sector and civil society – and for that matter every citizen – to invest in the global action climate agenda and to move forward with it.

IOM would like to take this opportunity to renew our commitment to the pursuit of an ambitious climate change agenda, and to facilitate the adoption of migration not as a survival but as an adaptation strategy to climate change – so it is not just emergency flight, but contribution to disaster risk reduction. And, making sure that this orderly approach is to calamities arising from climate change and natural disasters which are recurrent in many parts of the world

And also to addressing the effects of climate change in terms of increasing temperatures, coastal erosion, sea level rise, and desertification – which, as I said, are frequently happening. And for all these reasons together IOM made climate change an institutional priority and here we created a division dedicated to addressing climate change issues and to dealing with MECC. The head of that div DI is here with us today and you will hear from her later today. And that dev comes at the conclusion of a long-standing commitment that IOM has engaged on for more than 22 years in terms of research, data gathering, capacity building, development, evaluation, etcetera. Again, I would like to welcome all of you – we are very pleased to have all of you here with us and we hope it will be the beginning of a conversation on larger climate action constituency to make sure the nexus between migration, environment and climate change is understood and pursued as an agenda for change. And to make sure that climate change agenda will be well-integrated into the other pillars of the newly emerging transformative agenda that the UN is driving to make sure migration will be what it is meant to be – a positive driver of development with possibilities for maximizing the benefits of migration and minimizing any negative effects.