September 21st is the UN’s International Day of Peace. The theme this year is “Climate Action for Peace.”
The link between climate action and peace may not be immediately obvious but, as the UN explains, there are many critical links between climate action and the key justice and peace issues of our day: “Natural disasters displace three times as many people as conflicts, forcing millions to leave their homes and seek safety elsewhere. The salinization of water and crops is endangering food security, and the impact on public health is escalating. The growing tensions over resources and mass movements of people are affecting every country on every continent.”
The main weakness of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change is the voluntary nature of the promised emissions cuts. Not surprisingly, global emissions have continued to increase since 2015. If humanity maintains our current trends, earth’s temperature will rise by 3 – 5 degrees centigrade. This data prompted the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change to warn that such a rise in temperature would be enough to devastate communities and bio-regions all over the world, destroying habitats, wiping out species and leaving millions of people, particularly in the low-income countries, to face deeper poverty, hunger and death. The scientists insisted that the world needs to slash emissions by 45% by 2030 in order to hit the target of no more than a 1.5 degree rise in temperature.
This year’s Climate Action Day of Peace will be followed two days later by the UN Climate Action Summit. At this meeting, it once again will become clear that the necessary cuts to greenhouse gas emissions will require a profound transformation of the global economy, with initial focus on the energy, forestry, agriculture and transportation sectors. We no longer have time for a slow and steady transition. We must move with tremendous speed and scale.
So far, the proposed Green New Deal is the clearest framework which has risen to meet this challenge. It can help countries take the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and fashion them into a coherent national plan. As such, it has become a pathway to peace and justice. It will be up to civil society to insist that our governments around the world pick up this plan and begin implementation.
To mark the UN Climate Action Day of Peace and the UN Climate Action Summit, our congregation is taking additional climate action by committing to an energy audit with follow-up action, financial support for Indigenous-led conservation, and financial support for girls’ education in the Global South. We will use our actions to hold our governments accountable for effective climate action.
Sue Wilson, CSJ
Office for Systemic Justice
Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada