As support for global deal cools, Canadians need to hold leaders feet to the fire
Recently, I found myself sitting on the sidelines of a heated debate on climate change.
This was not a clash between scientists and climate change deniers. It was a group of environmental activists and development workers arguing the merits of the terms “climate change” versus “global warming.” It was a war of words, both sides desperate to ensure Canadians would understand the peril we face — hoping, beyond hope, that the right words would inspire action.
From where I sit, the peril could not be clearer. In my eight years with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI), I have witnessed the impact of drought and floods on Southern partners and the communities they serve.
In Swaziland, many go hungry. Nearly half the population is reliant on food aid. Seventy per cent of the population is engaged in subsistence farming and food production has been steadily falling for the past decade. Erratic weather, soil depletion and drought persist as problems for today and the future.
Niger, too, has struggled with food security due to uneven and unpredictable rainfall that has only worsened in recent years. CCI supports local partners’ work with subsistence farmers to increase their income and food security through adaptation strategies such as community grain banks. Here women like Fati Hassan reap the benefit. “Before, it was us the women who travelled. We travelled a distance of nine kilometres to get food and now it is close by.”
In Niger and Swaziland, as in many poor countries, women are disproportionately affected. Globally women produce up to 90 per cent of the rural poor’s food. They gather food, work the land and walk long distances seeking water and other staples. Because of their poverty they are at greater risk of violence and disease — AIDS, cholera and malaria. Women are charged with the use and preservation of the land, but exert little control of natural resources and are barred from owning property in many places.
I could go on. In recent interviews with Southern partners, each partner — no matter the focus of their work — raised the issue of climate change as a key challenge. Poor communities around the world bear little responsibility for the degradation caused by excessive carbon emissions, but they feel its impact most harshly. Combined with the current food and economic crises, climate change threatens to undo decades of development gains.
At Crossroads we’re in the business of poverty reduction. We are working with local partners to increase their resilience and capacity to adapt. We are supporting rural producers. And we are increasing women’s participation in decision-making in their communities and in government. We are not experts in climate change, but we do know that we can do something to reverse this terrible trend. It is just too important to sit on the sidelines. We can all do something.
We can change our own behaviour and consumption here in Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We can support poor countries disproportionately affected with funding for mitigation and adaptation. We can press for women’s increased political representation and access to and control over resources.
Perhaps most of all we can join with others to raise our voices. As headlines declare that global leaders have abandoned concrete goals for the UN summit in Copenhagen, hope is fading. It’s time to tell our leaders that we expect more from them.
Collaboration across borders to address global problems is hard. We get that. But reaching an agreement that is fair, ambitious and legally binding is within our grasp. We need our leaders to lead at Copenhagen.
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