Three years ago, I went to a workshop in Ottawa. Here I met my dear friend Lixin Fan. At the time he had just arrived from China with big dreams to make a documentary about the world’s largest human migration, which happens in China during the new year when migrant workers return home for the holidays. He didn’t know anyone, he wasn’t sure where to begin, but he could see the film in his mind, and damn it, he was going to make it.

I was present the first time Lixin pitched the film, in an big auditorium in front of a crowd of strangers. He had rehearsed for days in the hostel we stayed in carefully going over every word, perfecting the cadence of his voice I could tell you it went off without a hitch, but that would be a lie. It was tough, because the business is tough. Making films is kinda like climbing Everest without oxygen – sure it can be done, but it’s next to impossible and perhaps not the best idea. You have to want it bad.

This is Lixin’s film. It is complete. He pitched it, he filmed it, he edited it. Certainly film making is a collaborative art, but Last Train Home is truly his film. Later this month it will premiere at IDFA, where it will screen in competition, before making its way through the festival loop and into theaters around the world.

I am, simply put, just so damn proud.

Amidst the bureaucracy of negotiations, Care International, along seven NGO heavyweights released a report on the impact climate change will have on human migration.  The study, entitled “Give me Shelter,” clearly states:

• The negative impacts of climate change are already causing migration and displacement. The exact number of people that will be on the move by mid-century is uncertain. However, the scope and scale could vastly exceed anything that has occurred before. The International Organisation of Migration (IOM) estimates that there may be 200 million environmentally-induced migrants by 2050.

• People in the least developed countries and island states will be affected first and worst. The consequences for the global economy and poverty reduction efforts could be devastating. There may also be substantial implications for political stability.

And here we present a new class of politically oppressed: The Climate Refugee.

Language contained in the texts of international treaties is a critical negotiating point, often hotly contested.  And with good reason.  Using a term like “climate refugee,” has serious political implications, recalling 1951 U.N. convention on refugees.  Suffice to say, the United States took issue with the term immediately, which will be removed from the text prior to the December round of negotiations.

Still, it’s inclusion in the Bonn round of negotiations is indicative on the growing need to quantify the impacts of climate change on human populations. Critics continue to argue that the notion of climate change as a driver of migration is scientifically opaque. While science can prove that sea levels are rising and temperatures are getting warmer, it’s impossible to ascertain how people will react to those changes.  Will they leave their homes, or simply bunker down and weather the storm?  We won’t know for sure until the worst arrives.