United Nations secretary general Antonio Gutteres has commended religious leaders for jumping to the front in combating climate change in “the world of God creation”.
About 30 000 people are attending climate talks in Katowice, Poland, to come up with guidelines to make the Paris Agreement to reduce global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius work. Climate change presents the single biggest threat to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) everywhere and its harsh impacts disproportionately burden the poorest and most vulnerable. Speaking to the press after opening the 24th conference of parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change, Guterres said it is time countries tripled their strides to fulfil commitment of the Paris accord because “climate change is running faster than we are”.
He commended Pope Francis for issuing an encyclical – a position paper – in which he backs global efforts to reduce carbon emissions, including calls for a shift from polluting fossil fuels to clear, sustainable energy. When asked about the stance taken by the Catholic leader, Gutteres stated: “I do believe that if one is a believer that the world is created by God, it must be terrible to see human being destroying creation. So, I think it is perfectly normal that a religion that believes in the works of the creator is totally against the destruction of the world of the creator that human beings are doing in present times.”
In 2017, Pope Francis donated truckloads of maize worth K365 million to Malawians hit hard by hunger caused by persistent dry spells and flush floods in all eight dioceses in the country. These extreme weather events have become frequent and hugely impoverishing in the face of climate change.
The Catholic Church in Malawi – through its social arms, especially the Catholic Development Commission (Cadecom) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) – are working with communities to reduce environmental degradation, vulnerability to climate change and impoverishing impacts.
In the flood-prone districts of Karonga, Chikwawa and Nsanje, Cadecom has joined hands with local authorities to restore vegetation on bare riverbanks, entrench sustainable farming practices that enable farmers harvest more from small piece of land, install early warning systems to alert communities to rising water levels and construct evacuation centres where flood survivors take refuge.
(Source: The Nation Malawi, 6th December 2018)