Turning up the heat on the poor

ACT/Caritas partner SUDO has installed water pumps in Kalma camp [Hege Opseth ACT/Caritas]

CAFOD's Sebastian Gordon reports from Sudan on how climate change is already forcing people from their homes, threatening their income and their entire way of life

Much talk at the recent G8 summit centred on a need to reach a binding agreement on climate change.

The aim - to prevent global temperatures rising by no more than two degrees this century, a target deemed necessary in order to prevent so-called "dangerous climate change".

I read this news with great interest as I sat in my office in Darfur, enduring the sweltering 35C heat.

I pondered what exactly scientists and politicians consider "dangerous climate change"? It struck me that perhaps, climate change is already proving dangerous for some people, indeed the very people I was working alongside.

Expanding deserts

As the world gets hotter, deserts expand like creeping plagues, scorching once fertile land and draining life-preserving water sources.

This is what’s happening in Darfur – as the sands of the Sahara crawl southwards, the amount of arable land is declining.

This would be cause for concern anywhere, but in an area where so many people eek out a living from what little farmable land there is, any decline in that land could prove catastrophic.

And so it is. Put simply, for many people climate change is dangerous now. It is already forcing them from their homes, threatening their income and their entire way of life.

In the face of such adversity, people organise themselves within their communities and sometimes ethnic and religious divisions come to the fore.

Whilst it would be inaccurate to blame the conflict in Darfur on the effects of climate change, there is no doubt it is more than playing its part in exacerbating tensions that already exist between sedentary farmers and nomadic groups.

It is of course a cruel irony that developing countries, which have historically created by far the smallest carbon footprint, are now suffering the fallout of climate change most acutely.

And, in all likelihood, there will be more drought. Globally, 11 of the last 12 years have been the hottest on record.

As the effects of climate change worsen, people living in poverty will feel the impact most severely, whilst remaining the least well equipped to react.

Ecological debt

To this end, CAFOD has just launched its climate change policy, which calls on developed nations to shoulder the lion’s share of responsibility for tackling what it calls, “the greatest challenge facing humankind”.

“Historically and to this day, developed nations have been using up far more than their fair share of the Earth's common resources for their own benefit, biting into the share of developing countries," the policy says.

"CAFOD believes that developed countries should acknowledge their ecological debt to developing countries and take full responsibility for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions."

As I sat in my office in Darfur, I realised that such a statement is true. We, the polluters are responsible for climate change and as individuals each of us must do whatever is necessary to wean ourselves off our high-energy lifestyles.

It is not enough to wait for governments to provide the lead – we have all been part of the problem and we can all be part of the solution.

In today’s global village, we have a responsibility to our friends in developing nations to do what is just and fair in order to ensure that we are all able to enjoy a safe and secure world in the future.

take action

Advent Appeal 2008 CAFOD Advent Appeal: Please send a message of support to kids this Advent at a special school run by a CAFOD partner

Shine a light in the darkness Please sign our petition calling on the world's largest mining company to listen to communities in the Philippines worried about the effect mining will have on their land - plus send a personal message of solidarity to the people of Macambol

Buy a World Gift Browse our new range of alternative gifts that act as two presents in one – something for you to give to friends or a relative, while the real gift changes the life of someone living in poverty