wfn.org | CWS - Global Partnership Key to Global Climate Stalemates

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Advocates tell leaders 'Global partnership key to global climate stalemates'

NEW YORK CITY, Sept. 21, 2009 -- Global partnerships are the key to
resolving climate change negotiations and gaining collective
commitment to capping greenhouse emissions and providing adequate
adaptation funding, non-governmental organizations and small island
climate change advocates told civil society, business and faith
leaders in a briefing at the United Nations last week.

As a prelude to this week's United Nations Week of Climate Change
Action and the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, the September 16 UN
briefing, in which Church World Service presented, detailed a
rationale for moving "from global warming to global partnership" as
the key to achieving a collective commitment to capping emissions and
helping the world's most vulnerable people adapt to climate change.

The briefing was co-sponsored by the State of Grenada, Chair of the
Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), and the Committee of NGOs
(CoNGO, the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations in
Consultative Relationship with the United Nations), an umbrella
organization of more than 600 NGOs.

Ambassador Dessima Williams, chair of the Alliance of Small Island
States, said "We cannot continue to ignore the human costs of climate
change-unnecessary loss of human life, hunger, disease, poverty and
lost livelihoods are all on our doorsteps. They have the potential to
threaten social well-being and political stability, and in some cases
the very survival of low-lying island states.

"In these negotiations we need for more ambitious reduction targets to
ensure the survival of small island states and low-lying areas around
the world and to boost our well-tested resilience," she said.

In the event, titled The Real Wealth of Nations: From Global Warming
to Global Partnerships, humanitarian agency Church World Service's
Enough for All campaign was cited as an example of successful
adaptation support in action. The campaign, in part, is focusing on
the role of women as both chief bearers of the burden of climate
change impacts and as power points.

'Climate change not an equal opportunity phenomenon'

CWS Director of Education and Advocacy Rajyashri Waghray emphasized
the wisdom of including women in world partnering efforts. "Climate
change is not an equal opportunity phenomenon. Women and children are
the frontlines of coping with the impact of climate change because of
their economic status and because of the particular roles they play in
society.

"But bear in mind they are also on the frontlines of creating
alternative strategies and solutions," she said. "Our experience in
grassroots development work in different regions of the world
demonstrates that women are often well positioned to manage risk
because of their roles as both users and managers of environmental
resources, as economic providers and as caregivers and community workers.

"When policy makers and development work have taken into account
gender roles and incorporate women's voices, their efforts to help
communities adapt to changing climate have met with greater
effectiveness and sustainability," Waghray said.

She cited one of the main "drivers of poverty" is women's traditional
lack of access to and control over food production and
decision-making. "Where women have had access to and control over food
production and decisions surrounding these processes, the lesser the
chances of hunger and poverty."

In developing countries over 70 percent of the people depend on small
or subsistence farms and holdings to primarily feed themselves and
their families. In the case of small island developing countries
(SIDS), the CWS advocacy director said, "The land itself is
disappearing, and more of it will, entire countries and communities.
The topic of climate change is the here and now of their reality."

For more information on Church World Service's Enough for All Campaign
and Countdown to Copenhagen, visit www.churchworldservice.org.