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Collaborating to Fight Climate Change
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For the people of the Ontong Java Atoll in the Solomon Islands of the South Pacific, global warming is not a looming problem — it’s already there. Rising sea levels and higher tides are destroying their food supply, as salt water intrudes on taro swamps, and many islands are becoming submerged. Relocation of the Atoll’s 2,000 residents is likely in the near future.
Episcopal Relief & Development recently took a leadership role in forging a coordinated, proactive response to global warming in the Asia/Pacific region. We recognize climate change poses an imminent threat on a range of fronts to our mission of healing a hurting world. At a landmark meeting in Hong Kong, co-hosted by the Anglican Church in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, Episcopal Relief & Development and its partner organizations agreed on a three-part strategy of adaptation, education and policy change.
On the adaptation front, climate change is disproportionately harming people living in poverty in the developing world. It is creating refugees, escalating disease outbreaks, increasing natural disasters, harming sanitation and agriculture, causing economic displacement, and fueling tensions that could result in conflict and even war. It puts every Millennium Development Goal in jeopardy.
That is why the participants in the Hong Kong meeting are moving aggressively to help those suffering the most. On the vulnerable islands of the region, that will mean helping people find homes and livelihoods in a new place. In the Philippines, it will mean helping farmers preserve their fruit, adjust irrigation techniques and plant new crops better suited to new weather patterns. In Myanmar, it will mean taking new steps to prevent hillside erosion.
On the education front, Anglican churches in industrialized Asian countries that are contributing to global warming, such as Japan and South Korea, are informing congregants about what they can do to shrink their carbon footprint and assist those who are being harmed.
And looking at the big picture, Episcopal Relief & Development recognizes that climate change has social justice implications, because the wealthiest countries have largely caused the problem while the poorest are bearing its burdens. As a result, Episcopal Relief & Development is supporting efforts to shrink carbon dioxide emissions in the United States and other industrialized nations, as well as the fast-growing economies of India and China. Putting policy into practice at the local level, Episcopal Relief & Development, in partnership with the Amity Foundation, is supporting an innovative pilot project to provide solar power to 400 homes and three schools in Qinghai Province, which is north of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (Tibet).
As a human-caused problem unprecedented in scope, climate change requires closely coordinated, strategically-focused action by every development organization. The Hong Kong meeting helped launch Episcopal Relief & Development and its partners toward this goal, to the benefit of people living on Ontong Java Atoll and throughout the region.
