“Climate change touches every fibre of our being together as community,” says Isaiah Toroitich, ACT’s global advocacy lead, in a conversation at COP24 in Katowice, Poland.  “There is an urgency for the world to respond to climate change.  As ACT Alliance, we know this- our members deal with it every day.  In Africa, ACT members respond to ongoing droughts that affect our humanitarian and development work.  In Asia, in Latin America, in the Caribbean we see similar levels of climate change related stresses on communities that are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”

ACT brings a unique voice to the climate change negotiations .  “We have policy experts here in Katowice,” Toroitich explains,” who bring tremendous knowledge and experience on the technical side.  But we also bring practitioners. This year, we have people from the Uganda, Zambia, Europe, Kenya, South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Argentina and other Forums here.  They bring their own experience of the practical community-based solutions that work in their own context.” This combination of policy and practice helps ACT to raise up the voices of people in communities effectively, to input into the negotiations. 

“As part of the ecumenical family we bring, along with WCC and LWF, a voice of faith, the moral and ethical imperative to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable, to care for creation, and for each other as we respond to the needs that climate change brings to the world,” Toroitich adds.

ACT’s history of involvement in the COPs goes back to COP 15 in 2009, but some of our member organisations have engaged on climate change right from 1992 when the UNFCCC was established. “The most important thing for this COP,” Toroitich says, “is to develop the rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement.”

The world came together in Paris and recognized the urgency of climate action, the need to be ambitious in keeping global temperature rise to 1.5C.  “But now we need to focus on how to make it happen.  What rules will guide us in implementing this ambitious, urgent Agreement.”

It is vital that a good rulebook is established at this COP, as the Paris Agreement must be operational by 2020.  According to Toroitich, “There is no time to waste!”

ACT would like to see a rulebook that will:

1. Enable climate action to keep to the 1.5C target. The rulebook must push for ambition and enable countries and the world to act urgently to ramp up their national commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions .
2. Enable accountability and transparency. The rulebook must enable countries to be  transparent and accountable  to their emissions reduction commitments and provision of climate finance. 
3. Focus on the vulnerable. The rulebook must be overtly supportive of the most vulnerable, including  developed countries who are at risk, and vulnerable groups within societies including women and indigenous people.

The next two weeks in Katowice will be critical in determining how the world will respond to the huge challenges before it.  And ACT will be in the thick of it, raising the voices of the vulnerable and advocating for an ambitious, accountable and just rulebook to shape that work.

04 December 2018

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SICK EARTH CALLING FOR CLIMATE ACTION

ACT Alliance is the world’s largest Protestant and Orthodox network of churches and agencies engaged in humanitarian, sustainable development and advocacy work. Climate change has been a primary advocacy issue for the Alliance since 2010.

What: A person in costume will represent a ‘sick earth’ and will express how their sickness relates to increasing global temperatures. ACT Alliance delegates will demand actions needed to save the sick earth – including messaging on climate finance, the inclusion of gender justice, rights-based adaptation, low carbon development – and action now for climate justice!

Who: ACT Now for Climate Justice Campaign of the ACT Alliance

Where: COP24, in the space just after registration and before entering Area B

When: December 4^th at 13:00  

For more information on the ACT Now for Climate Justice Campaign, or to request interviews with the sick earth or a person from the ACT Alliance delegation please contact Joanna Patouris at 665-108-114 or joanna.patouris@actalliance.org.

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There can never be a more important time for churches to stand and walk in solidarity with the poor and climate vulnerable than now!

As the 24thConference of Parties to the UNFCCC kicks off in Katowice Poland (2nd- 14thDecember), there is a need for churches to work together in a well-coordinated effort to ensure that global leaders will make political and financial commitments that will enable swift actions towards limiting global warming to 1.5o C. One of the goals of this COP24 is for parties to finalize the rulebook of the Paris Agreement.

As a young person from Southern Africa, I feel if this COP24 does not achieve this goal, and the world continues on its harmful pathway, we will fail to limit global at 1.5oC. It is a great risk, one which will rob us as young people of our prosperous future. In my understanding if we fail to limit global temperatures to below 1.5o C we will reach a point of no return, a point we will experience heat waves, floods, erratic rainfall and many other forms of disaster linked to climate change which will greatly affect many economies. It is not the future we wish to live in.  My country Zimbabwe largely depends on rain fed agriculture hence climate change will have a direct impact on people’s livelihoods.

As a young person, my thoughts also go to the climate vulnerable young people in the “climate hotspots”-  countries in the horn of Africa, small Island developing states and many least developing states. We as young people are the future. The problems which will be left for us are far beyond what we can imagine.

It is my wish that this COP will address critical issues for developing countries such as loss and damage, and adaptation. It is also important that developed countries make commitments based on historical responsibilities to ensure adequate and predictable financial resources for developing countries to implement their post 2020 mitigation and adaptation plans. It is my wish that the COP will deliver a comprehensive and balanced operational guidance on the all the provisions of the Paris Agreement to ensure its effective implementation from 2020.

The world no longer has time. We need to reduce our carbon emissions now, it is important that the churches work together to offer hope to the climate vulnerable. Churches need to continue affirming that financial, political and technological solutions are still possible to limit global warming. The churches must continue to raise their moral voice in advocating for climate justice. Beyond the COP, based on the conviction that climate change is both an ethical and humanitarian issue. The ecumenical family must be ready to support the vulnerable in their time of need. The Church must also be the lead in shaping, changing the lifestyles and mind sets of people to think sustainably ensuring that we all contribute to reducing CO2 emissions.

The Time is Now!

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Collins Kudakwashe Shava is young active Zimbabwean. He is a youth representative from the ACT Alliance Zimbabwe Forum. He has an interest in mobilizing young people to contribute to the sustainable development agenda. As a public policy and governance student in Zimbabwe he has a passion for climate justice. He has been involved in climate change advocacy and research at both national and international level.

LWF, WCC and ACT Alliance reiterate calls for just implementation of Paris Agreement

As the United Nations climate summit kicks off in Katowice, Poland, global church organisations World Council of Churches (WCC), the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and ACT Alliance called for renewed global solidarity and urgency of action to support the communities at the frontline of climate change impacts.

“There is no more time to waste in short-term self-interestedness”, said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, WCC general secretary, while urging the UN to ramp up pledges from participating nations, in order to be able still to meet the agreed-upon goal of no more than 1.5°C increase in global temperatures. “Urgent adaptation and mitigation measures, transformation of economic systems, deep behavioural change, and supportive national and global policies and institutional arrangements are needed now to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences of climate change”, he said. “In facing this existential challenge, hope lies in realising that sustainability and justice are two sides of the same coin”, Tveit added.

Creation is not for sale

For LWF general secretary, Rev. Dr Martin Junge, a deep transformation is needed to limit the continued global warming. “As people of faith we know well how God wants this world to be and what God wants for human beings and calls them to be in this world. Our message to the churches and to the world is that creation is not for sale. As churches we should focus on that vision and engage in action for climate justice”, he said.

The Katowice Climate Change Conference, 2-15 December, is the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 24) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “The LWF engages with climate justice as a matter of intergenerational justice and our delegation at COP24 consists of young leaders actively involved in the topic of climate change and advocacy in their churches. They are issuing clear call, to the current generation, for future generations. Because climate change won’t disappear by declaring that it doesn’t exist”, added Junge.

Support adaptation and resilience

Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, general secretary of ACT Alliance, noted that the implementation of the Paris Agreement depends largely on the rules and guidelines that will be further developed at COP24. “It is critically important that the rules enable an ambitious and just implementation of the Paris Agreement, rather than watering it down”, he said. 

“Our call for climate justice and climate action is urgent. We are faced with unprecedented crises. Communities and countries are losing their territories in the Pacific to rising sea levels. Floods and droughts are causing humanitarian emergencies in Asia and Africa”, said de Faria, as he referred to the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 1.5 degrees that provides scientific evidence of the need to act urgently to prevent catastrophic climate change.

“We are concerned that developed countries have not kept their promise to provide adequate climate change finance to support adaptation and resilience in developing countries. We are also disappointed that there isn’t adequate climate change finance, and so far it has not met the criteria of predictability, additionality and transparency”, he added. The head of ACT Alliance also stressed the wish to see the issue of loss and damage “receive support and to be included in the transparency framework of the Paris Agreement”.

The World Council of Churches, ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation represent more than half a billion Christians worldwide and have been engaged in climate justice advocacy work at local and global levels for the last decades.
 

For media inquiries, please contact Joanna Patouris, ACT’s Climate Change Communications Coordinator joanna.patouris@actalliance.org, +1-647-971-5360.

Climate change experts from the ACT Alliance network have published a report assessing the threats posed by climate change on the sustainable development goals (SDG) and disaster risk reduction. The report finds that warming of 1.5°C will severely impact climate-vulnerable developing countries, and urges more ambitious climate action. The report also identifies policy recommendations to maintain the possibility of staying at 1.5°C global warming.

Titled ‘Enhanced Climate Action in Response to 1.5°C Global Warming: Scaling up Nationally Determined Contributions,’ the research focuses on climate impacts in particularly climate-sensitive regions in which ACT members and partners are present. The report features case studies from the Marshall Islands, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Jordan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Central America (including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua), and the European Union. 

Bold climate commitments are needed by 2020 to respond to the risks of 1.5°C warming, as highlighted in the IPCC Special Report earlier this year. The authors state that climate change is affecting the most vulnerable populations and is hindering progress made towards the SDGs, particularly the goals related to poverty, health, water and sanitation.

“We are running out of time. As caretakers of creation, we need to hold governments to account and we must take action to prevent any further risk to human life and dignity. Commitments and messages of solidarity must be transformed into concrete climate action so that support is provided to those most in need,” said Rudelmar Bueno de Faria, General Secretary of ACT Alliance.

Africa and Asia are projected to experience 75 per cent of the global risks associated with increased temperatures, putting a tremendous burden on governments to achieve the SDGs.

“Without effectively aligning 1.5°C-consistent national mitigation and adaptation action with SDGs and disaster risk reduction goals, sustainable development will remain an illusion, leaving behind hundreds of millions of people,” the report reads.

ACT’s call for action is further rooted in the experiences of ACT members who note that climate change is depriving poor and vulnerable people of their fundamental human right to be free from hunger and extreme poverty. The report notes that scaled-up climate action to reduce climate impacts around the world is a humanitarian, human rights, development and justice imperative.

The report provides a ten-step plan of action for all governments to respond to the risks of 1.5°C global warming including; undertaking a gap analysis; ratcheting up mitigation; fostering climate resilience, and scaling up climate finance to name a few.

The next round of climate negotiations (COP24) is less than one week away and provides governments with another opportunity to increase their climate commitments towards the 1.5°C temperature target. ACT Alliance will present the report to government and civil society alike at a side event at COP24.

‘Enhanced Climate Action in Response to 1.5°C Global Warming’ was commissioned by the ACT Alliance Secretariat under its Global Climate Justice Project, To date, the report has been launched in Bangladesh for the Asia region and San Salvador for the Latin America and Caribbean region.

For media inquiries, please contact Joanna Patouris, ACT’s Climate Change Communications Coordinator joanna.patouris@actalliance.org, +1-647-971-5360.

“God gave us light to see the beauty of creation. God gave us love to live in fellowship with creation, and God gave us strength to care for creation,” said ACT’s Climate Justice Ambassador Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town.

Today, leaders from around the world have gathered for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), in the form of a zero-emissions (virtual) summit to champion climate action and to amplify the voices and efforts of communities on the frontlines of climate change.

The summit is hosted by the current presidency of the CVF, the Republic of the Marshall Islands- one of the world’s most vocal yet vulnerable countries to climate change. Suitably, the theme of the forum is ‘Stepping up climate action to survive and thrive’.

As global commitments to address climate change fall drastically short of achieving the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C temperature target, the findings of the IPCC Special Report on Global Warming further emphasises the urgency for more ambitious nationally determined contributions, including emissions reduction targets.

“We know that our current way of life is not sustainable in the long-term. We know that our extraction of the earth’s resources and related emissions are capable of destroying creation,” said Archbishop Makgoba.

“The world is heating up, and we are seeing frightening effects.  Lives of poor and vulnerable people have already been lost,” said Birgitte QvistSørensen, Moderator of ACT Alliance.

With COP24 only ten days away, the summit presents a political moment for leaders to amplify the alarm on the urgency for more ambitious climate commitments. It will also provide an opportunity for parties to share on their innovative climate initiatives as an expression of solidarity with the climate vulnerable.

“Countries, communities and people who are affected by climate change today need our support. Not only to deal with the immediate challenges, but also for long-term transformation towards a sustainable way of life,” said Archbishop Makgoba.

ACT members and forums are implementing disaster risk reduction and adaptation initiatives in particularly vulnerable communities. ACT is also mobilising communities at the local, national and international levels, investing in capacity building for advocacy on climate justice.

ACT commends the efforts and leadership of climate-vulnerable countries and urges other parties to follow suit.

“I hope that we will see climate champions leading the way, announcing their commitments to take bold and ambitious action. I hope they will inspire us and I hope that they will join ACT Alliance in our call for more ambitious climate action,” continued QvistSørensen.

For media inquiries, please contact Joanna Patouris, ACT’s Climate Change Communications Coordinator joanna.patouris@actalliance.org , +1-647-971-5360.

ACT Alliance, The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), World Council of Churches (WCC) and Bread for the World are appealing to world leaders to take swift and coordinated action to limit global warming to 1.5°C degrees as a humanitarian and ethical obligation.

“As faith-based organizations we are very concerned that marginalized, vulnerable, and poor people are affected by climate change impacts that are increasingly exposing them to emergencies and humanitarian crises,” the four organizations warn in their publication, “Limiting Global Warming.” Released today, the publication comes less than two weeks before the United Nations climate talks (COP24) to be hosted in Katowice, Poland.

Reiterating their sustained advocacy on climate change at the annual United Nations conference and other fora, the four organizations insist that sound financial, technological, and political solutions are possible.

“If we fail to address climate change and to increase efforts to protect the affected communities now, we will bear the incalculable risks to future generations,” they state in the preface.

They also argue that increased efforts towards protecting the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change will be a significant step towards ensuring that future generations are protected.

“ACT Alliance members around the world are responding to severe humanitarian catastrophes that are increasingly related to climate change. Committing to ambitious climate action today is not only a commitment to fulfilling our prophetic and moral responsibility as communities of faith, it is also a commitment to a more resilient and sustainable future for all,” said ACT Alliance’s General Secretary Rudelmar Bueno de Faria.

The publication was written by a team of climate experts and development practitioners from Africa, Europe and Oceania, who studied scientific literature and grassroots reports.

The publication acknowledges the findings of the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which confirms the convictions of partners and members of groups in the Global South who note that even a small rise in temperature will profoundly affect lives and livelihoods.

Despite the Paris Agreement’s goal to keep global warming at 1.5°C, the authors note that the world is “off-track” to meet this target. They further note that overshooting the goal would “severely jeopardize” the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The publication identifies Small Island Developing States, Least Developing States, South Asia, Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Central America and Northeast Brazil as climate change “hot spots”.

If global temperatures rise above 1.5°C, agriculture, water health, coastal communities and cities, marine and tropical marine and (coral) ecosystems are most at risk. There would be heatwaves, erratic rainfall, storms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

“This is not the future we want,” the authors write, urging countries to “fulfil their responsibilities and ratchet up their Nationally Determined Contributions now.”

“Limiting Global Warming” recommends: deep and fast reductions in CO₂ emissions; multilateral cooperation; shifting investments to “green” or sustainable ones; addressing equity justice and climate justice to overcome the root causes of vulnerability; sustainable consumption; low population growth; and low energy and food demands.

For media inquiries, please contact Joanna Patouris: Joanna.patouris@actalliance.org Climate Change Communications Coordinator, ACT Alliance

Mrs. Yustriani, a 68 year-old resident of Ngatabaru village in the Sigi district of Indonesia, was very glad to get back to dancing when her Poco Poco group met again for the first time in over a month.  They hadn’t gathered to dance together since the 7.5 magnitude earthquake devastated their community and so many others in Central Sulawesi.                                                             

120 of the 351 houses in Ngatabaru were destroyed in the disaster, forcing families to erect tents to live on their property or in tent villages.  Mrs. Yustriani has moved out of her own house into a tent on her property “because I was scared to sleep inside,” she said. 

Slowly she is overcoming the fear. “I have slept five nights in a row back in the house.”  When asked what she would do if another aftershock happened, she quickly laughed and replied, “I would run out of the house!”

Mrs. Yustriani lost her husband last year, and is now living with and supporting four of her fifteen grandchildren.  Her roots in Ngatabaru run deep- she has lived there for 35 years, helping deliver babies in the community, and for eight years her husband was the village leader.

“Life is hard in this village,” she said.  “Often what we get in the afternoon is what we eat in the evening.”  She supports her own family by collecting plastic bottles, which she sells for 55,000 rupiahs ($3.75USD) per 20kg bag.  Since the earthquake she has received support in the form of a tent, blankets, food, soap, and clothing. 

ACT member Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU) provides a mobile clinic and health and nutrition support to Ngatabaru as part of the ACT Indonesia Forum’s response to the earthquake.  The full appeal can be found here.

“I am old and I need to take care of myself,” Mrs. Yustriani said.  The dance group helps her to do this.

The group met regularly before the earthquake to dance and share fellowship together.  They competed in a competition in Palu, winning matching shirts for the members of the group that read “Healthy is Amazing”.

The dance finished with a talk by YEU staff on the importance of good nutrition as the villagers had a healthy snack together.  Then the mobile clinic opened, and Mrs. Yustriani was able to consult with a doctor and other health staff, receive medication, and other health support.

“I dance for my health,” she said.  “It’s good to sweat again!”

“There was a rumbling sound, and then an explosion.  I looked up and a tsunami wave was towering over my small fishing boat,” said Mr. Mushki, a 57 year-old fisherman from Pantoloan village near Palu, Indonesia.  “The wave picked up my boat and tossed it in the air, then it landed back on the water, with me still inside.  I blacked out.”

The explosion he experienced was the tsunami wave splitting at the estuary near his village, with one part of the wave travelling inland, the other racing down the bay to Palu.

When he woke, his boat had been tossed ashore, broken in two, near the wreckage of homes that used to be his village.  The impact had given him a few injuries, but he was able to go and look for his family- his wife, eight children and eleven grandchildren.

They had sought shelter further inland.  This was the good news.  The bad was that not only his boat had been destroyed, but his home as well.  There weren’t two stones left standing on each other.  Mr. Mushki’s family now lives split between two tent communities in Pantoloan, and he is contemplating what to do next.

“Some of my children are working, but they only earn enough to support their own families,” he said.  “I’ve been a fisherman all my life.  I want to get back to fishing, but can’t do that without a boat.”

Mr. Mushki’s injuries were treated by medical staff from ACT member Pelkesi, whose mobile clinics visit affected communities like Pantoloan, bringing health care to remote people who cannot easily access a hospital.

Three members of the ACT Indonesia Forum have joined in an appeal for relief efforts after the devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake that triggered the tsunami, which killed over 2,000 and displaced over 200,000.  The ACT appeal will benefit 100,000 people affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and liquefaction that followed in their wake.  The full appeal can be found here.

Mr. Mushki remains positive in his outlook.  “I’m lucky,” Mr. Mushki concluded, “I survived.  And so did my family.”

An important step was taken this week in New York, where the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) was adopted by the Third Committee of the General Assembly. The GCR was developed over an 18-month consultation period that involved a variety of stakeholders, including member states, UNHCR, and non-state actors such as ACT Alliance and its members. Refugees and host communities around the world are now looking towards all of us to make the Compact a reality. In this regard, and as an active member of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), ACT Alliance supports the below statement from ICVA released today.

Global Compact on Refugees – a step forward in translating words into collective action

Geneva, 16 November 2018 – This week marked an important step in the process of developing the Global Compact on Refugees. At the General Assembly in New York, UN Member States showed decisive support for the Compact. Looking ahead, ICVA now calls for all stakeholders to translate words into collective action. “Refugees worldwide and the communities that host them deserve solidarity from us all,” says ICVA’s Executive Director Ignacio Packer.

The Compact was developed in a truly inclusive and collective manner. Member States, UNHCR and other stakeholders – including NGOs and refugees – came together in a historic 18-month process to forge a Compact, outlining a common vision to address the challenges of forced displacement. The final text is a prime example of what functioning multilateralism can achieve, despite the inherent compromises.

“The development of the Compact has opened up a historic opportunity to reinvigorate the refugee regime as it provides a framework to catalyse international solidarity with refugees and host States,” commented Ignacio Packer. Despite having to balance the interests of various stakeholders, the Compact managed to retain this strong ambition. It particularly highlights that all actors stand to benefit from more predictable, equitable and sustainable responsibility-sharing.

In this perspective, broadening the base of support beyond traditional donors and host countries, while engaging in a multi-stakeholder approach will be key. Partnerships can have the multiplier effect required to expand our collective capacity to respond to refugee crises.

The implementation of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework over the past two years has already demonstrated the potential of new approaches. “We have witnessed the mobilization of new political will and partnerships in many corners of the world, geared towards improving the daily realities of refugees. We now need to build on this positive momentum,” added ICVA’s Executive Director.

In doing so, it will be fundamental to keep the principle of non-refoulement at the center of the Global Compact on Refugees. In addition to being the cornerstone of the refugee protection regime, nonrefoulement is also the foundation of responsibility-sharing, the first act of solidarity being to allow entry for those in need of protection.

NGOs are already working to operationalise the ideals of the Global Compact on Refugee, suggesting ways they can contribute to its implementation. “We are eager to collaborate with UNHCR, Members States and other stakeholders to make the Global Compact on Refugees a game changer in refugee response,” concluded Ignacio Packer.

The statement is available for download here.