The U.N. climate summit in Marrakech is taking place not far from the Mediterranean Sea, where thousands of refugees have drowned while fleeing war and famine, due in part to climate change. “One in 30 people will be displaced from their homes … unless we take action on climate change now,” says Asad Rehman of Friends of the Earth International. He discusses President-elect Donald Trump’s meeting with Brexit supporter Nigel Farage and notes that leaving would likely lower environmental standards in Britain.<\/p>\n
AMY<\/span> GOODMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Asad Rehman, you’re looking at the United States from the vantage point — well, here, we’re in Morocco, but of Britain, where you live. We discussed this very briefly yesterday<\/a>, but one of the first world leaders that Donald Trump, the president-elect, met with at his penthouse, Trump Tower, was Nigel Farage, the man who pushed for Brexit. Can you talk about the significance of this? Right now there’s just a plan leaked by the British — out of the British government, that says Britain, even with a conservative prime minister, is not going to be ready to leave the European Union for many months. But the significance of Trump’s meeting?<\/p>\n ASAD<\/span> REHMAN<\/span>:<\/strong> Well, first of all, for many environmentalists and people who cared about justice within the U.K., we fought very strongly for the U.K. to remain within the European Union, largely because one of the arguments that was being made for leaving the European Union was a bonfire of regulation, a lowering of the environmental standards, and safeguards for everything from workers’ rights, maternity rights and, of course, inaction on climate change. And, of course, that was combined with a very extreme right-wing popular nationalism that was rooted in xenophobia and racism and anti-immigration feeling, similar very — very similar to, of course, what we heard within the United States. And I think, for many British people, they saw many parallels between the two.<\/p>\n And so, Nigel Farage meeting Donald Trump seems to be very…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n