The climate change affects people and nature to a historically unrivalled extent. The livelihoods of millions of people especially in the developing countries are extremely jeopardised: the inhabitants of sinking islands in the Pacific Ocean; the millions of people living in the especially endangered coastal areas of Asia and Africa; the poor on all continents, who – forced back on poor-quality soil – settle on landslide-prone hillsides or frequently flooded reaches; who have no possibility to build up stocks and hardly any access to medical treatment and information. At the same time, these people have to struggle with crop failures, unseasonable moisture periods, disastrous floods and salinised soils.
The causes are familiar: The connection between the emission of carbon dioxide, climate change and the above-mentioned effects cannot be denied today, and is finally recognized by all governments. Likewise acknowledged is the role of civil society in preventing further catastrophes. And climate change obviously is not a mere technological problem, but above all a matter of justice between North and South. Because climate change is the result of lacking responsibility and lacking justice towards the people affected most in the developing countries, towards the generations to come and towards creation. We are talking about nothing less than a gigantic re-distributional process in favour of the industrialized nations. With our energy-dependent economic growth and resource-intensive lifestyle we are wasting the resources and chances for better living of the poor populations in the South. That's why we need climate justice! And therefore sustainable climate policy and development policy are inseparable for "Bread for the World".
Fighting climate change is the (key) touchstone for a solidary global community – for a global community that has to learn using the common goods available to all people in a responsible and fair way.
As a founder member of the German Climate Alliance we champion these issues together with more than 70 German partners. We support partner organisations locally to develop adjustment measures in their projects, and to convey affected people the basics about reducing further environmental damages, thus securing their existence in the future. The range of measures includes reforestation, constructing water storage and developing seed adjusted to the changing climate conditions.
We consider three strategies necessary to achieve better climate justice and to curtail the negative effects of climate change: first off, we need answers for the question how to avoid uncontrollable climate changes.
Second, we need measures to restrict and control the unavoidable and already foreseeable effects. This part could be dubbed "avoiding, what cannot be accomplished" and "accomplishing, what cannot be avoided". And third, it is imperative that we discuss in politics and in public, how we can replace the growth model of the industrialized nations with sustainable production and consumption patterns – for our own and the global community’s good.
The study "Sustainable Germany in a Globalised World" will make an important contribution to that. That is why we are involved, and we rejoice over the fact that this is a joint venture of development and environmental organisations.
Pastor Cornelia Füllkrug Weitzel
Director "Brot für die Welt"
