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‘Environmental refugees' warning
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| By Bernadette Zebec and Ted Myers
27 November, 2005 |
Global warming could create a new wave of dispossessed people – environmental refugees.
That was the message delivered to a national conference on climate change hosted by Catholic Earthcare Australia in Canberra last week.
The warning followed a position paper launched by the Catholic Bishops Committee for Justice Development Ecology and Peace, which urged all Australians to co-operate in open dialogue and face the radical changes required to tackle global climate change.
The chairman of Catholic Earthcare Australia, Bishop Christopher Toohey, said in his keynote address that human-induced accelerated climate change “raises serious moral and spiritual questions, not just for Catholics but for all Australian citizens and leaders, and calls for change in our way of life”.
“Scientific research has concluded that humans have caused rapid global climate change by contributing to ever higher concentrations of greenhouse gases, 80 per cent of which comes from the burning of fossil fuels,” he said.
“This build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is gradually increasing world temperatures that will lead to higher sea levels as icepacks and glaciers melt.
“We are also seeing the occurrence of more violent weather events, widespread droughts in some areas and lower food production in others.”
Bishop Toohey added: “If we act now the changes can be slowed and harm can still be minimised.”
The executive officer of Catholic Earthcare Australia, Colin Brown, drew attention to United Nations figures that revealed a blowout in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.
“These alarming figures, released ahead of the international climate change conference in Montreal later this month showed that Australia’s emissions have increased by a massive 23 per cent in the past 13 years,” Colin said.
“They expose a decade of lost opportunity in Australia in which things are getting worse, not better.”
Speaker after speaker in a packed program that combined theologians of many faiths with scientists warned of the need for urgent and immediate action.
Fr Denis Edwards from Adelaide urged us to try harder to learn to adapt to the changing situation.
“Most importantly, we need to care for the victims, most of whom have had little to do with the causes of global warming,” he said.
One such case was highlighted in a passionate presentation by Fr Michael McKenzie from the Kiribati islands in the Pacific which average just two metres above sea level.
Like other low-lying lands such as Bangladesh, the livelihoods of the entire island nation are under threat.
“Water supplies and soil fertility are being threatened by the intrusion of salt water; medicines from roots and leaves have lost their quality, drought is experienced for six-month periods and the coolness of early hours in the morning is no longer felt.
“While we believe in the rising of the sun as a sign of hope, we also see the rising of the seas as a sign of death,” he said.
“I came to this conference and Australia with an SOS on behalf of our nation. When our people have to start swimming, will Australia be disposed to help us?
“We may be the first of a new wave of environmental refugees, victims of climate change largely brought about by the developed world.”
Human-induced climate change is already having disastrous effects in the tiny island nation of Tuvalu, which has already begun an exodus of its population of 11,000 in the face of rising seas.
New Zealand is now accepting them as environmental refugees.
Australian Catholic leaders urged the government to show solidarity with poor nations and island states that will inevitably suffer from the effects of climate change.
“It has always been the Church’s mission to hear and respond to the cry of the Earth and its inhabitants - both human and non human,” Bishop Toohey said.
The Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference established Earthcare Australia in 2003.
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