Articles

Walk On, Walk On, With Hope in Your Heart

…and you’ll never walk alone. These lyrics, popularly known and sung by various artists express the sentiments embodied by a large gathering at Victoria Park on Sunday, November 29 for the Climate Change Rally. There we heard speakers from various organizations urging us ALL to effect the change in caring for earth. NOW is the moment for urgent action. Individuals and groups gathered because we all have hope that we can be the change we want to see.

It was very inspiring to see little children carrying placards …one in particular caught my eye:”Grown ups, please remember us”. Other strong messages were visible like, "Respect Your Mother" and "We Want Climate Action", "The Earth Deserves to be Preserved".

Earlier this month, the Council of Canadians issued a challenge, an invitation to join the rally for the climate. The invitation said, “This is our moment London, to come together and fight for our future. We need everyone's voice to make the message loud and clear to all our politicians. This is a global rally with more than 2500 communities around the world gathering on the day before the historic talks at COP21 in Paris begin on Monday November 30th. Please consider joining us and bringing your friends and family. This affects every global citizen on the planet and we must unite to create a renewable future!!” And turn out we did!

“Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible.” Cherie Carter Scott

And so, we walk on, walk on, with hope in our hearts, because we never need to walk alone.

Kathleen Lichti, CSJ



 

The Paris Conference: A Change in Consciousness

On Monday, November 30, the twelve day United Nations Conference on Climate Change begins. This conference is the 21st annual Conference of the Parties (COP) - the “Parties” being countries that want to take action on climate change. It is also the 11th session of the Conference: Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP).  The previous twenty-one annual conferences have been full of rhetoric, demonstrations, protestors, and lobbying of environmental activists, and also of very little commitment, agreement, or actual change.  But the Paris Conference offers hope of transformative change. Consider Canada. As I write this blog, it is not bureaucrats, but our new Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna who is participating in discussions which seek common ground on key issues which will form the basis for a framework for agreement. And it is senior federal and provincial politicians who will attend the Conference. Already these changes represent a shift in our attitudes.

Canada has lagged far behind other countries in taking action to prevent the looming destruction of our planet, earth. Twenty-eight European countries with targets far more stringent targets than those of Canada have already met their year 2020 targets. The Conservative Government has done very little work towards meeting the limited target of a 30% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.  But now, our newly elected Government is sending change makers to the Conference and has promised to set new targets for environmental change within 90 days. This is happening only because citizens, groups, scientists, and leaders have had a shift in their conscious awareness of the need to protect our shared home on this planet. We are realizing the need to understand the underlying structures which are inflicting damage to our environment. We are undergoing a shift in our worldview and values. And we are coming to the realization that the whole of creation is sacred and we human beings have a sacred mission to look after our planet.

Another reason for hope is a fundamental change in the process to be used at the Conference. Steve Zwick writing in Ecosystem Marketplace reports that unlike past years, negotiators do not have the impossible task of weaving millions of incompatible threads into a “uniform sheet”. This time the process is akin to a “charm quilt” made of many patches, each of which is a different fabric. The more than one hundred patches are “Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions” (INDCs) that countries have been formulating all year.  Some of these INDC patches fit together and some clash. 

Negotiators meeting in Bonn this week are trying to fit the pieces together and that means figuring out which elements of climate change strategy should be universally defined and which should be left to INDCs. Phrases and mechanisms that some countries hold sacred while other countries regard as profane will be left out of the universally defined strategy since there is no possibility on agreement by all countries to these items. The items excluded from the framework agreement will then be the responsibility of INDCs.

Estimates for agreed action on reductions in greenhouse gases currently stand at reductions totaling 2.7 degrees centigrade. To meet the 2 degree target required to prevent environmental disaster there will need to be dramatic increases in INDCs and a method for fitting these patches together.

Pope Frances has entered the discussion on climate change with his recent encyclical Laudato Si’. He notes that unless we undergo a radical conversion in regard to our patterns of consumption and relationships, dire consequences for humanity and our planet will ensue. To bring about change in the consciousness of the world’s view about our use of natural resources and care of our planet, we firs need to bring about change in each ourselves. Transformative change in others begins with transformative change in ourselves. 

Pat McKeon, CSJ

 

Action Opportunity on Human Rights and Climate Change

“The fragmentation of knowledge proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationship between things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant. This very fact makes it hard to find adequate ways of solving the more complex problems in today’s world, particularly those regarding the environment and the poor; these problems cannot be dealt with from a single perspective or from a single set of interests.” (Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ # 110)

As you know, leaders from countries around the world will gather in Paris next week to finalize the Paris Agreement on Climate Change (COP 21 – Conference of the Parties 21).

Climate change-related events are already causing loss of lives, livelihoods and personal property.  In addition, they are affecting health, water access and food security, as well as damaging critical infrastructure.  Moreover, climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities.  In 2008, the UN Human Rights Council underscored this point in stating that “the world’s poor are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change” (HRC 7/23, 2008).

So, while it is critical that the Paris Agreement establishes commitments that will reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in order to ensure the integrity and resilience of natural ecosystems, it is equally important that it protects the human rights of all, especially individuals and communities that are already vulnerable or marginalized. For this reason, many groups around the world are calling for the upcoming agreement to include the following reference to human rights in the operative section of the core agreement:

All Parties shall, in all climate change related actions, respect, protect, promote, and fulfil human rights for all, including the rights of indigenous peoples; ensuring gender equality and the full and equal participation of women; ensuring intergenerational equity; ensuring a just transition of the workforce that creates decent work and quality jobs; ensuring food security; and ensuring the integrity and resilience of natural ecosystems.

It is important to include this language calling for the protection of human rights because:

  • While the Parties have recognized the interactions between human rights and climate change, they have not taken action to operationalize (ensure the effective function of) their rights obligations.
  • Human rights will be affected by climate change itself as well as the actions undertaken in the agreement.
  • In order to guarantee the mainstreaming and systematic application of human rights into climate change actions, this paragraph must  be included as one of the general provisions contained in the operative section of the Paris Agreement.  (Provisions contained in the preamble of a legally binding agreement have a much weaker political and legal status than the status of the operative provisions).
  • Integrating human rights into the Agreement will allow for the informed participation of local stakeholders in the decision-making process when it comes to developing climate change policies, provide benefits for the most vulnerable and help to ensure that traditional knowledge will inform policy designs.

If you want to take action to work toward the inclusion of the above-mentioned paragraph in the final draft of the Paris Agreement, you could send a short email stating something like this --- “I am writing to express my support for the following revised Operative Paragraph: “All Parties shall, in all climate change related actions, respect, protect, and fulfil human rights for all, including the rights of indigenous peoples, gender equality and the full and equal participation of women, food security and intergenerational equity as well as a just transition of the work force that creates decent work and quality jobs and upholds the integrity and resilience of natural ecosystems.”  Send to MakeItOperative@aol.com.

Sue Wilson, CSJ
Director, Office for Systemic Justice
Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada
519-432-3781 ext. 402
swilson@csjcanada.org

Alberta’s Climate Plan: Game Changed

Ever have one of those days when all the assumptions you had about an issue turned upside down? Today (November 22nd) is one of those days.

Addressing climate change in Canada has long been an intractable problem. This is because, despite the slowly transforming economies and declining carbon pollution emissions in Ontario, Quebec and B.C., Alberta’s emissions were growing at a breakneck pace and wiping out the reductions happening everywhere else. As a result Canadian governments were left with two options: deny or avoid the problem, or force change on Alberta.

Needless to say previous federal governments have consistently chosen door one.

But today’s climate change announcement in Alberta could change all that forever. The new plan will:

  • Cap the carbon emissions from the tar sands at 100 MT and eventually force them to decline
  • Close the fleet of coal electricity plants by 2030, drastically reducing both deadly local air pollution and also massive amounts of carbon emissions
  • Increase the amount of renewable electricity on the grid to 30% by the same year
  • See Alberta join with Ontario, Quebec and B.C. in putting a price on carbon pollution. Alberta’s price will start at $20/year in 2017, rise to $30 in 2018 and then rise annually. Money from the fee will be invested in programs to further reduce carbon emissions and help to ensure that price increases don’t harm citizens with limited income
  • Significantly reduce waste methane emissions from oil and gas wells that are also important causes of climate change

This is a historic moment for Alberta and Canada. This is a commitment to tangible and aggressive climate action and we all should applaud Alberta for this huge change in direction.

Based on this announcement, Alberta’s carbon pollution should soon peak and start to decline. This is a fundamental pivot after years of uncontrolled carbon emissions growth and it removes one of the largest barriers to developing a meaningful Canadian climate strategy.

This announcement also sets Alberta on a path toward diversifying its economy and recognizing that a global transition away from fossil fuels is essential if the world as we know it is to survive. The money collected from a new price on carbon pollution can be invested in more energy efficient homes and businesses, new clean technology and renewable energy jobs.

With this move from Alberta, there is now nothing standing in the federal government’s way of developing a credible climate strategy and following Alberta’s lead by setting a limit on carbon pollution in Canada. Canada can now move ahead and fulfill its promise to cut carbon pollution in line with global science-based targets. 

Today’s announcement is very good news for Albertans and Canadians. It will help protect us all from dangerous climate change, set the scene for Canada to restore our good name, and places the country and the province in a solid position to harness the opportunities for growth in a clean economy.

This is the beginning of something new, folks. I am looking forward to a new Canada on the stage in Paris at the U.N. climate negotiations.

Guest blogger, Tim Gray, Executive Director of Environment Defence www.environmentaldefence.ca/

“You Will Do Even Greater Things Than I”

Do you ever experience a sense of helplessness when you see the news of bombings, extreme poverty, climate change causing massive destruction of earth’s resources, which brings the whole gamut of homelessness, loss of identity and tribal mentality which seeks to dominate in order to survive? Wars, competition are deified to the point that the sense of collaboration, and working together seems impossible.

Well, this CAN change, if we choose to be part of that change in the decisions we make now. Do we choose to be co-creators or destroyers? The choice is ours NOW to co-create. It CAN be done. When Jesus said “You will do even greater things than I” (Jn. 14:12) I think he really meant it. Through modern science, technology we have powers now that are almost unimaginable: powers that can destroy or re-create. The choice is ours as to how we choose to use those powers.

Manoj Bhargavea in particular, along with many others, is choosing to re-create and invites others to join him….and he shows that there is actually FUN in doing this!

Watch “Billions in Change” and see if you might want to join the wave of hope that is emerging amidst the challenges of our world today.

 

Let’s start putting our energies into the possibilities that are ours as individuals, as governments, societies and together make a real difference. It IS being done by some.

Kathleen Lichti, CSJ