Climate change and water: caring for creation

Climate change affects people all around the world, but violent storms, droughts, floods and rising sea levels have especially devastating consequences on poor and thus more vulnerable communities. Climate change also aggravates the water crisis increasingly felt in many places around the world. This situation requires a response that goes far beyond the targets of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change. 

This project holds together the concerns for climate change and water, thus emphasizing the links between ecological and social concerns, emergencies and development, global threats and local experiences, local engagement and national and international advocacy.  

The project includes an Ecumenical Water Network (EWN) that focuses on the right to water and community-based initiatives, and a study on energy supply and production (including a link to security concerns). There will be two yearly EWN regional meetings and an annual summer school on water bringing together young people with church representatives, scientists, artists and activists. 

For the Ecumenical Water Network, the project will accompany regional processes and engage in advocacy for the right to water. Youth will be engaged with church representatives, scientists, artists and activists to explore the sacred and life-giving dimensions of water. 

The project will participate with other networks in a public campaign to strengthen the post-Kyoto mandate of states to control the impact of global warming through setting emission targets and processes to achieve them. This includes yearly participation in appropriate UN bodies and the facilitation of dialogues towards an inter-faith statement on water and climate change.