Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now our climax story of the week, we have a special guest. He is a recent winner of a Covering Climate Now journalism award. Covering Climate Now works to improve climate journalism. WNYC is part of their coalition and they honored Nicolas Haque roving correspondent for Al Jazeera English for reporting he did from one of the most threatened cities in the world from sea level rise from climate change and beyond that, how it causes climate migration.

We talk so much about unwanted migration these days, and of course, unwanted by the people who feel overwhelmed by too many migrants, but unwanted by the migrants themselves lest we forget, because people don't want to leave their homes usually unless there's some negative reason that's forcing them to. There's an increasingly strong link to climate change from migration. PBS stations in this country will be airing a special next week in which you can see some of Nicolas's award-winning work but here's one minute of his original Al Jazeera English report. This begins with the anchor of the newscast introducing him.

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Peter: To Senegal, where our correspondent Nicolas Haque joins us live now from popping in. It's a coastal area suffering from erosion and just to be clear, Nick, the erosion that they've seen there, that's a direct result of rising sea levels. That's a direct result of global warming.

Nicolas Haque: Exactly what you see, right behind me, is perhaps a window of what the world will look like unless world leaders mitigate and adapt to climate change but behind me are homes that were just standing there, there was living rooms, kitchens, people used to come here on holiday, there's even that summer house of the president back in the distance, while all of that is now destroyed, by what or by this. Peter, look right behind me, the ocean, the ocean rapidly rising and we're able to see this right now because we're at low tide but during the rainy season, all of this is swept by the ocean and that's how all of this was destroyed, one by one, houses being toppled by the rising sea.

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Brian Lehrer: With us now is roving correspondent, Nicolas Haque. Nicolas, thanks for coming on and roving over to WNYC today. Hello.

Nicolas Haque: Sure. Hi.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get to the climate migration, heart of the story, St. Louis Senegal where you did that piece from is a place many Americans have never even heard of. Can you describe it a little, let's say before the flood for people unfamiliar?

Nicolas Haque: A friend of mine describes it as the elbow of Africa. If it's the elbow of Africa and you stretch out the arm, then the hand, where the hand is, would be America, there are historical links between St. Louis and the United States, in fact, between Senegal and the United States. It's part of the slave trade that happened hundreds of years ago, there's a dark history and it's also UNESCO World Heritage Site. It used to be the capital of French Colonial Africa. It has a long history and it's an incredible place. It's an archipelago, made up of several islands, but they're all now under threat, because of the rising waters.

Brian Lehrer: The UN says Salloway is the city most threatened by sea level rise in all of Africa. Why there and how do they measure that?

Nicolas Haque: Well, it's barely one meter above sea level. Brian, it's very sensitive to any slight rise in ocean waters. We've seen, for instance, this summer, incredible storms, incredible rainy weather, and that just destroys hundreds of homes but I just want to say, Brian, it's not just there in Senegal, it's also around the coast of West Africa. There are low-lying regions, such as Liberia where I was in Liberia just a couple of weeks ago, where I've seen the sheer destruction of homes and it's so impressive to see right, you see this water just flowing in rapidly and destroying people's homes.

That's just generational homes just destroyed it in a matter of seconds, hundreds of years of history, perhaps just disappearing in a matter of minutes. That's why there's just a great urgency from the people there to try to address this. Some of them don't say it by word, they don't call it climate change, they just see this as sheer destruction. There's really a sense of helplessness in the face of that.

Brian Lehrer: Now let's go from the description of the ravages of sea level rise in Saint-Louis, Senegal to the issue of climate migration, did a lot of people have to leave there, for example?

Nicolas Haque: Of course, people are leaving their homes. We're not talking about hundreds of people, even thousands of people, we're talking about millions of people that this summer are on the move not just on the African continent, but in Asia too. The place that they go to, at first, is away from the ocean, some of them go inland, but inland, the problem in the region where I live, is you have the Sahara desert, where there have been extreme weather patterns, where there have been extreme droughts, and that has really been affecting people there.

There's a feeling that the state is really absent, and powerless in the face of this changing climate. People are taking matters in their own hands, and leaving their homes. I want to say, Brian, this isn't a new phenomenon, people leaving their homes because of the environment. You in the United States, I'm sure many New Yorkers are listening to this, have a history, or a past of people leaving their homes, maybe Ireland fleeing, the droughts there, or the famine, or the fact that people couldn't grow food, and trying to find temperate climates in which they can live.

For me, I consider myself a son of a first-generation migrant, my mother is from Bangladesh, a low-lying country, they had a lot of land in the southern area, the Delta, and all of that was destroyed and with this destruction, I inherited that loss. So many of us have inherited that loss and that defines us in a way. When I see people facing this now, there's something that happens that triggers me to continue to report this story. It's such an urgent matter for all of us.

Brian Lehrer: In your story, in your report that we are a sample of, you bring up the sobering stat that 24 million people were displaced because of the changing climate in just one year, and that according to the UN's predictions, those numbers will double pretty quickly if no action is taken to mitigate the situation but that was interesting about you, considering yourself a second generation climate migrant? Is that personal history? What got you interested in covering climate as a journalist in the first place?

Nicolas Haque: Yes, I was a journalist in London and when I decided to go to Bangladesh, people thought that's career suicide, you want to do TV in Bangladesh, and no one cares, or even when I decided to come to Senegal, but the reason why I went to Bangladesh is to understand some of the personal insecurities that I saw in my family, the fear of what is to come. I was wondering, why are my parents so scared about what is to come next.

I realized when I went to these countries when I went to Bangladesh, or for that matter, even in Senegal, that that fear of a looming storm has an effect on us. I think that you are now facing this here in the United States when you see Ian coming in, and all these hurricanes coming in on the coast. This will have a profound effect on people who have lost their homes and with it, all these memories, but also, what fallout impact this has on younger people, on your children who have this fear of what is to come. I think that is going to define future generations.

Brian Lehrer: To wrap up, I'm going to tell people and ask you to help us tell people how they can see some of your work and some of your colleagues' work because covering climate now has a new documentary that weaves together the various pieces of winning climate coverage from its awards this year. So tell our listeners a little bit about the documentary burning questions covering Climate Now, which is set to premiere in this country on the Public Television Channel World on October 25th.

Nicolas Haque: Well, there's a bunch of journalists across the world from Charleston, South Carolina, to Senegal, or to the Pacific Islands, telling this story of our planet giving words to Mother Nature in many ways, and showing to the world what is really happening. I really want to emphasize, for instance, on the western coast of Africa, there are, according to recent articles from nature, 213 natural sights, 71 cultural African heritage sites, these aren't just historical sites for African people.

It's also part of the African American history, the American history, these doors of no return where slaves were taken out to come to the United States. It's a dark chapter of history, but it needs to be remembered just like what happened during the Holocaust and certain places that were kept. These places need to be protected so that never again, things like that happen.

At stake here is not just the destruction of homes, it's the destruction of our heritage. I want to add to that the fallout effect of climate change has of an effect on all of us on the planet. Researchers in West Africa from the CDCs are going there trying to figure out why are there more and more diseases coming from animals to humans? How is that jumping from animals to humans occurring? Well, we're encroaching on nature's land, and we're seeing more and more viruses. We saw the Ebola virus outbreak a couple of years ago, and when there are viruses like that, that acts indiscriminately. Whether you're from a rich country or a poor country, it will all affect us in the same way. This is the story that we're trying to tell in this documentary, The Story of Climate Change.

Brain Lehrer: Next Tuesday on Public Television's World Channel. Nicolas Haque, thanks so much for joining us.

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