New climate visas should be created to allow victims of natural disasters to come to the UK, and to bring in skilled workers needed for the transition to net zero, a Conservative think-tank has argued.

Onward, whose co-founder Will Tanner recently became Rishi Sunak’s deputy chief of staff, is urging the government to prepare for the likely increase in global migration as a result of the climate crisis.

The authors of the report call for the government to prioritise financial support for climate adaptation in developing countries, but also to open up new legal migration routes.

Despite the hardline rhetoric on the illegal immigration bill by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, the authors suggest that welcoming a limited number of climate refugees would be consistent with the government’s approach.

The United Nations high commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reported that an average of 21.5 million people were forcibly displaced each year by sudden onset extreme weather events between 2008 and 2016.

Citing the UK’s recent acceptance of thousands of Ukrainian refugees and Hongkongers through bespoke visa routes, the report calls for the introduction of a natural disaster visa scheme.   

Cyclone Mocha Death Count Rises to 60 in Myanmar

Packing winds of up to 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour, Mocha made landfall on Sunday, May 14, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.

According to local leaders and junta-backed media, the death count in cyclone-hit Myanmar rose to 60 on Tuesday as villagers tried to piece together ruined homes and waited for aid and support.

In Rakhine state, at least 41 people died in the villages of Bu Ma and nearby Khaung Doke Kar, inhabited by the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, local leaders told AFP reporters at the scene.

Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in over a decade, churning up villages, uprooting trees and knocking out communications across much of Rakhine state.

China said it was “willing to provide emergency disaster relief assistance”, according to a statement on the Facebook page of its embassy in Myanmar.

In neighboring Bangladesh, officials told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that house almost one million Rohingya who fled a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017.