 One billion. That is the amount of people who the International Organization for Migration estimate will be environmental migrants by the year 2050, driven by a combination of climate change, environmental degradation, sea level rise, and disasters. My name is Christian Newbacher and during the summer I interned with the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency which provides support for people to move, for people who are on the move, and for people to stay. Within the IOM, as it's called, I interned with the Migration Environment Climate Change and Risk Reduction Division, a relatively small team which works to elevate the importance of environmental migration and governmental policies related to both migration and climate change. During my internship I was fortunate to work on a number of different projects related to this area, including country-level reports, policy briefs, communications campaigns, talking points, and a blog post on how one particularly vulnerable group, indigenous youth who had moved to urban areas, was affected by this nexus between migration and climate change. As aspiring change makers in the policy sphere, it's paramount that we use the limited resources that we are likely to have at our disposal to achieve the maximum policy change that we can. And during my internship I learned three important lessons which I will apply moving forward to maximize my impact and which I also hope that all of you will be able to apply as well. First, be consistent and clear in your messaging. Decision makers have countless decisions to make every day, yet they have limited hours and limited resources to accomplish them all. Consistent and clear messaging can help overcome this shortcoming. During my internship this involved adapting my blog post and the talking points to explicitly include the key messages that my division wanted to get across to policymakers and thereby ensuring that these key messages became omnipresent in decision makers minds. Alongside clear messaging it is important that we use our convening powers in whatever organization or entity we work for. Bringing together stakeholders into a discussion will have an outside impact beyond just ourselves. During my internship I was fortunate to play a miniscule role during an environmental migration summit that was held in Kampala, Uganda which brought together heads of state and key stakeholders to outline common priorities and principles for the region related to environmental migration and this was a positive example about how bringing people together in a convening forum can achieve significant impact on policy. Finally, be relentless. Policy change, in particularly in politically charged and contentious questions, does not occur overnight. Rather we must keep at it, repeating these consistent messages and using our convening power over and over again to ensure that decision makers know what our priorities are. And so to everyone who is gathered here today and who is watching I urge you to be consistent in your messaging. Use your convening powers and be relentless. Through this we can achieve the policy change that we hope to see in the world. Thank you.