In an important development ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference (6-17 November) in Bonn, Germany, Anglican archbishops around the world have called on the international community to turn the Paris Climate Change Agreement into stronger action to fight climate change.

In an open letter to global leaders, the five archbishops have drawn attention to the significant threat posed by climate change, expressing their concerns over its impact on vulnerable communities worldwide.

Branding climate change the “challenge of our generation”, the letter urges global leaders to “set targets for the world to reduce our greenhouses gas emission fast enough to limit global warming to the safe level of 1.5 degrees.”

Musicians John Mark McMillan, Nicole Nordeman, and many other Christian leaders have also joined forces with the archbishops in their call to keep the promises the governments made in the Paris Agreement in order to restore the natural balance.

The letter also makes an appeal to “invest in 100% clean energy, particularly using local grids so it reaches those in poverty beyond the reach of national electricity grids.”

The text of the letter reads:

To world leaders:

As Christians across the globe we are calling for action on climate change. The changing climate is causing great damage to people and planet right now, and we are particularly concerned about hunger and poverty hitting the most vulnerable communities, who did least to cause it.

We urge each nation’s leaders to keep the promises they made in the Paris Agreement, to restore the natural balance.

Please use the COP23 global climate talks in Bonn, Germany this November, for each country to make significant progress to:

• Set targets for the world to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to limit global warming to the safe level of 1.5 degrees.
• Invest in 100% clean energy, particularly using local grids so it reaches those in poverty beyond the reach of national electricity grids.
• Support more sustainable, low emission agriculture, to stop communities going hungry, and help them cope better with more floods and droughts caused by climate change.
• Publish national country plans in 2020 showing how each nation will move to zero emissions.

Please follow up at the COP24 climate talks in November 2018, in Poland.

This is our generation’s challenge, a significant part of how we love our neighbors.

We’re committing to respond as Christians by living more sustainably, praying, and raising our voices; we’re asking every member of the church – the world’s largest network – to join in, alongside many others, and every national leader to lead the way.

Join us.

Pope Francis on Monday, October 17, 2017 called for governments around the world to collaborate to make migration a safer and voluntary choice, arguing that assuring food security for all requires tackling climate change and ending conflicts. He made the call at the global ceremony to mark World Food Day, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) headquarters. This year’s theme focuses on addressing migration through investing in food security and rural development.

“It is clear that wars and climatic change are a cause of hunger, so let’s not present it as if hunger is an incurable disease,” the pontiff said during his key note address.

He called for a total commitment to gradual and systematic disarmament, and urged a change to lifestyles, the use of resources and the production and consumption of food to protect the planet.

In reference to the development of the Global Compact on Safe, Regular and Orderly Migration – the first agreement of its kind negotiated by governments under the auspices of the UN – he said, “Managing human mobility requires a coordinated, systematic intergovernmental action in line with existing international norms, and full of love and intelligence”.

“What is at stake is the credibility of the whole international system,” he added.

He also said it was unfortunate that “some” countries are moving away from the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Change the future of migration

Each year millions of people leave their homes to escape hunger, poverty and conflict.”

More and more people migrate because they do not have the option to remain in their homes and lands,” said FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.

“It is our intention to address the root causes of migration, such as poverty, food insecurity, inequality, unemployment and lack of social protection. To save lives, we need to rebuild the environment in which people live, reinforcing their resilience and ensuring their livelihoods to offer them the possibility of a dignified way of life,” he said.

World Food Day is being marked this year as global hunger rises for the first time in over a decade, affecting 815 million people or 11 per cent of the global population. The increase is largely due to the proliferation of violent conflicts and climate-related shocks which are also major drivers of distress migration.

Madagascar President, Hery Martial Rakotoarimanana Rajaonarimampianina, whose country is facing the impacts of climate change, also spoke at the event.

“Young men and women are the most affected by (climate change-related) population displacements. If we want to change the paradigm of migration, we need to find solutions in the countries of origin,” he said.

Hunger fuels migration

FAO believes that migration should be a choice, not a necessity, and FAO is working with partners and communities around the world to give people back that choice.

Between 2008 and 2015, an average of 26.4 million people were displaced annually by climate or weather-related disasters alone. In total, there are currently an estimated 244 million international migrants, 40% more than in the year 2000. A large share of these migrants come from rural areas where more than three quarters of the world’s poor depend on agriculture and natural resource-based livelihoods.

These large movements of people present complex challenges that require humanitarian and development solutions. Many of the triggers that cause people to migrate can be addressed by investing in rural development, supporting decent rural employment and ensuring social safety nets. This work also contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030.

Political will

Ministers of Agriculture from several of the Group of Seven (G7) nations also attended the World Food Day ceremony – testament to the important links between food security, rural development and migration. G7 representatives were Canada’s Lawrence MacAulay, France’s Stéphane Travert, Germany’s Peter Bleser, Italy’s Maurizio Martina, the United Kingdom’s Therese Coffrey and the United States’ Sonny Perdue. Japan’s Ken Saito sent a statement of support.

Other participants in the ceremony were European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan, the President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Gilbert F. Houngbo and the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley.

“Inequalities and lack of opportunities in rural areas are a leading cause for the loss by communities of one of their most precious assets: their young people,” Houngbo said. “My plea on World Food Day 2017 is for continued investment in rural transformation so that millions of young people can build a better life for themselves.”

“The biggest problem we have today is war, man-made conflict. Eighty percent of the expenditure of WFP – over $6 billion – is in man-made conflict zones like Syria, like Iraq, like Somalia… We will never achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 until we end conflict,” Beasley said.

World Food Day

FAO celebrates World Food Day each year on 16 October to commemorate the founding of the Organisation in 1945. Events are organised in over 150 countries across the world, making it one of the most celebrated days of the UN calendar. These events promote worldwide awareness and action for those who suffer from hunger and for the need to ensure food security and nutritious diets for all.

A ministerial meeting in Fiji on Tuesday, October 17, 2017 has stressed the urgent need for progress to meet the pressing schedules of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and build a global “Grand Coalition” of action between all levels of government, business and civil society.

“Nations cannot protect themselves individually without all the parties to the Paris Agreement doing what they have already agreed to do and more,” COP23 President and Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank Bainimarama, told delegates from 68 countries at the two-day “pre-COP” in Nadi.

Governments gather on November 6 in Bonn, Germany for the two-week annual UN climate change conference (COP23), along with tens of thousands of people from cities, states, companies and civil society organisations who are already acting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect their societies against climate change to ensure a sustainable future.

The Paris Agreement is a long-term global strategy to keep the average global temperature rise since the late 19th century well below 2C degrees and as close to 1.5C as possible. But with about one degree of that rise already in the system and extreme climate events rising by the year, a faster, bigger and united response is required.

Mr Bainimarama said: “We can no longer ignore this crisis. Whether it is fires in California, Portugal and Spain. Flooding in Nigeria, India and Bangladesh. The dramatic Arctic melt. Ice breaking off the continent of Antarctica. The recent hurricanes that devastated the Caribbean and the southern United States. Or the hurricane that has just struck Ireland and Scotland – the tenth hurricane of the Atlantic season this year. It’s hard to find any part of the world that is unaffected by these events.”

Nadi Meeting Looks Ahead to Major Work at COP23

The meeting in Nadi is discussing how governments can progress at COP23 to complete the full set of operational guidelines under the Paris Agreement to help government and non-government actors alike meet the goals of Paris to the best of their ability. Governments intend to finish this task in 2018 at COP24.

It is also considering how to make progress at COP23 on the design of what governments call the “facilitative dialogue”, an intergovernmental forum agreed at Paris to focus on immediate solutions to meet the Agreement’s goals and encourage rising ambition in the 163 national plans for climate action (NDCs) that countries have submitted under the agreement.

The set of NDCs is the most complete set of national pledges ever made to take concrete action under a multilateral agreement. But the aggregate ambition of all the plans needs to rise quickly because it is still indicating a 3C degree average temperature rise – which can mean a devastating several degrees higher for the most vulnerable areas of the world.

Mr Bainimarama stressed that his COP23 Presidency’s central tasks were to make progress on both these areas of work and to design a dialogue imbued with the spirit of “Talanoa” – a Fijian concept of an open and transparent discussion without accusatory finger-pointing.

Leaders Work Closely with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Climate Action

Joining the Nadi meeting, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the observable impacts of climate change highlight the urgency of building resilience to climate change, investing in adaptation and bending the global emissions curve by 2020. She also underscored the importance of making progress on the operating system for the Paris Agreement at COP23.

She said: “The (Paris) agreement was a remarkable achievement. But, to deliver on its full potential, and assist governments and society to go further, faster, together, it needs a complete and uncluttered set of guidelines. These guidelines should ensure that the Agreement fosters scaled-up implementation, as well as honesty, transparency and confidence in climate action among nations in the years to come.”

Ms Mohammed told delegates that several leaders had offered to work closely with the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in aligning their efforts and scaling up climate action.

Antonio Guterres has invited leaders to consider championing six high-impact areas at a special Climate Summit in 2019. These areas are investment in clean technology; maturing carbon pricing, enabling the energy transition, risk mitigation and building resilience, augmenting the contribution of sub-national actors and business and mobilizing climate finance.

“Increasing ambition is the only way to keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius this century, and as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. By focussing on these sectors, we can substantially reduce the gap between where we are and where we need to be,” she said.

Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation an Example of Civil Society Climate Action

Action, innovation and commitment from civil society groups remains most important to bring energy and life to the Paris Climate Change Agreement and drive action on the ground.

On the margins of the Nadi pre-COP, the Leonardo Di Caprio Foundation announced that it would provide seed funding for a new charitable trust, which will be used to provide renewable energy to two off-grid communities in Fiji.

This Fiji Rural Electrification Fund translates into a public-private partnership including the Government of Fiji, the Di Caprio foundation and the Fiji Electricity Authority.

The partnership introduces a model that can be replicated elsewhere. Fiji’s Prime Minister and incoming COP23 President Frank Bainimarama said: “This initiative is a good example of what is meant by the ‘Grand Coalition’ for climate action. The scale of action requires all hands on deck. We need to make the Paris Agreement come to life through real projects, for real people with real benefits.”

The communities served by this Program will receive 24/7 electricity services from solar and battery hybrid systems for the same or less money than they currently spend on fossil fuels to run diesel generators.

The first communities are expected to come online in the third quarter of 2018.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has announced that it will more than double the level of climate financing it will mobilise for its Pacific developing member countries to over $500 million between 2017 and 2020.

The announcement was made during a ministerial meeting in Fiji to prepare for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP23) billed to hold in Bonn, Germany from November 6 to 17, 2017. Fiji has the Presidency of the Bonn meeting.

In addition, the ADB signed two concrete agreements: first with the Government of Fiji for a $42 million loan to improve water and sanitation services to over 300,000 people in the greater Suva area, while ensuring that critical infrastructures are climate resilient. Second is with the Green Climate Fund (GCF) for a $31 million grant to the country through ADB.

“ADB has been supporting Fiji to improve water and sanitation for more than 20 years,” said the bank’s Vice-President, Stephen Groff. “With this new investment, we expect to assist Fiji expand water supply by 40,000 cubic meters per day, ensure 98% of households in Suva have access to clean water, and expand the sanitation network for additional 4,500 households to access reticulated sewerage by 2023.”

The Fiji Urban Water Supply and Wastewater Management Investment Programme was among the first group of projects approved by the board of the Green Climate Fund Board at its meeting in Zambia in 2015. The investment will also be co-financed by the European Investment Bank.

Prime Minister and Incoming COP President, Bainimarama, said: “As the incoming President of COP23, one of my top objectives is to create better access to finance for projects like this, not only for Fiji, but for other vulnerable countries in the region and around the world. I would not only like to thank the ADB and the GCF for their technical and financial support, but also for their leadership and forward thinking on climate finance more broadly. I encourage more lending institutions to follow their example and to join us in our grand coalition to build a more resilient, carbon-neutral world.”