It is important to “speak truth to power” and ask where climate finance is going says Julianne Hickey. Hickey, the director of Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand, was speaking at the annual conference of the Australasian Catholic Press Association (ACPA) last month. “In the beginning, none of the climate finance was reaching the Pacific, let alone Read more
A former New Zealand Prime Minister who was until recently administrator of the United Nations Development Programme believes the role of religion and faith organisations in developing and securing peace is “absolutely critical”. The Rt Hon Helen Clark ONZ PC said this in response to a question put to her by former Labour party cabinet Read more
For a long time polar bears were the poster child of climate change but that is no longer the case. Now it is an image of our fellow human beings, millions of them, battling on the frontlines for survival. While the west debate the merits of climate science, in large parts of Africa, Asia and Read more
About 100 companies have been responsible for about 71% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s according to a new report from climate change non-profit CDP in conjunction with the Climate Accountability Institute. The report hopes to highlight the role such companies, and their investors, play in Climate Change. These companies, led by Saudi Aramco, Russian gas Read more
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Pope Francis met privately for the fourth time on Saturday. The Holy See Press Office called their discussions “cordial” and said they spoke about “the good relations and fruitful collaboration between the Holy See and Germany”. They also discussed climate change and ways the world can work multilaterally to combat Read more
An Australian academic has suggested that one reason for the failure interventions for climate change adaptation in Pacific Island communities by external aid agencies is the wholly secular nature of their messages. Patrick D Nunn is Professor of Geography at the Australian Centre for Pacific Island Research and Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast. Read more
The move by Donald Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Accord is a grave moral injustice say a group of Pacific Island civil society organisations under the Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) They say his decision is a clear sign of his continued support of the fossil fuel industry which Read more
The archbishop of Wellington Cardinal John Dew has joined with the leaders of other churches in New Zealand lamenting the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Accord on climate change. “The decision of President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Agreement shows no concern for the rest of the world, nor for life Read more
US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, will meet New Zealand’s Prime Minister Bill English and Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee in Wellington next Tuesday. Brownlee says he welcomes the visit. He said the United States and New Zealand “share a deep interest in maintaining peace, prosperity and stability in the Asia Pacific region” The turtle in Read more
As warnings about the threat of rapid sea level-rise become increasingly urgent, one far-seeing, if dissenting, scientist has suggested it is likely the Biblical great flood did happen. “I don’t think the biblical deluge is just a fairy tale,” Terence J Hughes, a retired University of Maine glaciologist living in South Dakota, told the New York Read more