Anglicans from around the world are gathering in Fiji this week for an international consultation on climate justice. The event is being organised by the Anglican mission agency United Society.
Fijians are among the most vulnerable to climate change according to the website National Climate Justice.
The seven-day consultation, Encountering God in the Storm is being held in Fiji at the invitation of the Archbishop Winston Halapua, bishop of Polynesia.
“One of the aims of the consultation is to encourage Anglican leaders worldwide to grapple more vigorously with climate justice.” said the United Society’s global relations director, Rachel Parry.
It is aimed at helping to raise the issue on political agendas and inspiring the church to help communities in devising local responses.
Some 676 of Fiji’s villages are at risk of flooding because of rising sea levels. And several communities have already been forced to relocate.
“The impact is not just economic – with ocean acidification killing fish stocks and salt water ruining farmland but cultural because ancestral lands are being destroyed,” the United Society said in a statement.
“The growing intensity and frequency of storms and flooding is predicted to result in increases in drought, affecting land, food and water security. This year alone the nation has contended with Cyclone Winston and numerous earthquakes.”
National Climate Justice is a website that site seeks to deepen consideration of ethics and justice issues when formulating national climate policy.
It is a joint project of Widener University School of Law’s Environmental Law Center and the School of Planning and Architecture, University of Auckland.
Source
- nationalclimatejustice.org
- episcopaldigitalnetwork.com
- Image: screen shot youtube.com