A coalition of global Christian organisations have joined in appealing to world leaders to take swift and coordinated action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius as a “humanitarian and ethical imperative” in a new report released last week.
The group – which includes the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the ACT Alliance and the German Protestant development organisation Bread for the World – said in the report that as faith-based organisations they are “very concerned that marginalised, vulnerable, and poor people are affected by climate change impacts that are increasingly exposing them to emergencies and humanitarian crises”.
“If we fail to address climate change and to increase the efforts to protect the affected communities now, we will bear the incalculable risks to future generations,” they wrote. “In other words, if we significantly increase our ambition and efforts towards the protection of the poorest and most vulnerable to climate change, we will be taking steps towards ensuring that the rest of the world and the future generations are protected.”
“Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is a humanitarian and ethical imperative, and we affirm that financially, technologically and politically sound solutions are possible.”
The 60 page Limit Global Warming report, which was released ahead of a December climate conference in Poland, identifies so-called small island developing states and least developing states as well as the geographic locations of South Asia, southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Central America and north-east Brazil as climate change “hot spots”.
It says that if global temperatures rise above 1.5 degrees Celsius, agriculture, water health, coastal communities and cities, marine and tropical marine and coral ecosystems are most at risk with possible effects including heatwaves, erratic rainfall, storms, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.
“This is not the future we want,” wrote the report’s authors – a team of climate experts and development practitioners from Africa, Europe and Oceania. They urge countries to “fulfill their responsibilities and ratchet up their NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) now”.
The report concludes with 11 recommemodations for framing a global compact to ensure mean temperatures do not rise beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius.
