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Taking Action on Climate Justice

A conversation guide for church groups, to help equip you to take action.

Taking Action on Climate Justice Posters

A selection of climate justice posters for use in your church.

Christian Aid expectations for COP25

Christian Aid's key asks for the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, Spain, December 2019. The past 18 months have seen a flurry of new scientific information on the state of the climate. Severe climate impacts are already being experienced, particularly by the poorest and most vulnerable. Communities and ecosystems are already suffering devastation even at the current 1ºC of warming. The fires in the Amazon, Congo and California, the South Asian floods, and other extreme weather events, like cyclones Idai and Fani, point to a climate system already in crisis. The world is in a state of climate emergency. The climate emergency is real and efforts to take action now must be a priority. We call on governments to make a step change in their climate ambition and in the support given to help developing countries achieve it. Key asks Mitigation All countries to recognise the scale of the climate challenge and the need for a fair global effort to achieve the Paris 1.5ºC goal. The Conference of Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change should deliver a mandate for all countries to enhance the mitigation part of their Nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) in line with the 1.5ºC goal. The common time frame should be in five-year cycles. Long-term strategies should include landscape analyses to plan for nature-based solutions, to increase resilience, and to store and sequester carbon. Finance Adequate climate finance is a prerequisite to greater ambition in poor countries. Developed countries need to step up in providing adequate public finance to both help build resilience, but also to allow clean development and fulfillment – and exceedance - of the conditional parts of the NDCs. Loss and damage The Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM) should put greater focus on averting loss and damage than on post-event addressing of it. New, additional and adequate sources of climate finance are needed to enhance action. The potential of nature-based solutions for resilience should be given greater consideration and implementation priority. Adaptation Developing countries should be supported to complete and implement country-driven, gender-responsive, participatory and transparent adaptation plans. The overall financial flows, as well as the proportion of finance for adaptation need to be increased to allow vulnerable people, communities and ecosystems to adapt to the changing climate. Article 6 Rather than rely on ‘flexibility’ mechanisms, countries should instead focus on making transformational changes to their economies. Kyoto credits should play no role in any Paris mechanisms. Article 6 provisions should be adopted as a package. The Article 6 mechanisms should explicitly recognise the non-fungibility of fossil and biological carbon and prevent trade between them. Strong social and environmental safeguards are essential to be agreed before use of flexibility mechanisms. Nature-based solutions COP should recognise the potential co-benefits of nature-based solutions, as detailed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reports, and agree means to promote their implementation Nature-based solutions for mitigation should not be seen as an alternative to ending the use of fossil fuels. It should be seen as an additional and precautionary approach, with other co-benefits, including for resilience. Appropriate links with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)’s provisions should be made, and coherent implementation encouraged. Gender and Climate The revision must ensure that gender balance approaches are adopted under all the bodies of the convention. Download the full briefing here

World in disunion: Climate change and the Rugby World Cup

  The effects of climate change are being felt around the world and the Pacific islands are among the worst affected. But unless greenhouse gas emissions fall, the consequences in the coming decades will be far worse than anything seen so far. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga face an onslaught as the world warms. Hotter and more acidic oceans, due to higher levels of carbon dioxide, kill coral reefs upon which fish populations depend, while rising sea levels will swallow land, increase flooding and salinate water supplies. The region is also likely to experience more category 3 to 5 storms, such as last year’s Cyclone Gita which was the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Tonga since records began. Together these climate change impacts threaten to undermine the islands’ economies, deter tourists, making life increasingly tough and driving young people away, putting strain on the countries’ ability to field competitive rugby teams. Researchers warn of mass migration from the islands as a result of climate change in the coming decades. Alongside the Pacific island countries at the Rugby World Cup are some of the countries most responsible for the climate crisis. Major greenhouse gas polluters like the US, Australia, the hosts Japan, Russia, Canada, South Africa and the European nations will play at the tournament, to the tune of a world in union. But few, if any, of the most polluting competitors have credible plans to cut their emissions to safe levels - suggesting the World Cup’s theme song is just an empty promise. It is not too late to prevent dangerous climate change and to save the future for the Pacific islands, and the rest of the world. But it requires immediate action to cut emissions.

Integrated Conflict Prevention and Resilience Field Guide

This is a field guide for staff implementing the guidance laid out in the Integrated Conflict Prevention and Resilience Handbook. It summarises key points from the handbook and lays out a series of top tips and guiding questions for project and programme staff working in conflict-affected contexts. It aims to help staff to integrate a conflict-sensitive approach into key stages of programme design and implementation.

Integrated Conflict Prevention and Resilience Handbook

When communities are affected by conflict, they are more vulnerable to a wide range of other shocks and stresses, including natural hazards. Likewise, the ability of a community to manage tensions and withstand shocks, without a significant increase in conflict, can be seen as a key indicator of that community’s resilience. Poorly planned development or humanitarian interventions can also contribute to an increase in conflict. Therefore it is important that preventing conflict must form a key component of any intervention that genuinely seeks to build community resilience. This guide will support agencies to strengthen community resilience more effectively in conflict-affected contexts. It does so by providing step-by-step guidance on how to integrate a conflict-sensitive approach into pre-existing and commonly-applied resilience-strengthening methodologies. It is, to our knowledge, the first time that specific guidance of this kind has been developed.



Virtuous Circle: scaling up investment in low carbon energy


COP 23: Focus on the most vulnerable, focus on 'loss and damage'

A briefing outlining what Christian Aid are calling for at the United Nations climate change conference (COP23) in November 2017 in Bonn, Germany. What we're calling for at COP23 In 2013, world governments agreed to address the inevitable impacts of climate change that sufficient mitigation or adaptation have not prevented – otherwise known as ‘loss and damage’. Although this promise was reinforced in the 2015 Paris Agreement, they have yet to provide any international finance for this. Christian Aid and ACT Alliance are calling for COP23 to bring the reality of climate impacts into the heart of the climate negotiations and make progress on this crucial issue, to ensure vulnerable communities and countries have the resources to prevent, and respond to loss and damage from climate change.

Maximising the benefits of the global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons


PPA Learning Paper - The Receiving End of Exit

This paper tells the story from partners and country offices that have lived through exit and transition. It provides rich insights into how stakeholders in country handle the process, and lists their recommendations to INGOs and donors on phasing out.

Power analysis: A learning review


COP22 briefing paper: moving forward from Paris

This paper sets out Christian Aid's position in the lead up to COP22 in Marrakech in November 2016 - the conference should act as a springboard for accelerated climate action in the period before 2020, when the Paris Agreement is due to enter into force.

Resilience framework

Our Resilience Framework sets out how we work with partners to support communities to identify the risks they face, access resources and effectively to achieve sustainable results.

Resilience case studies


Ensuring sustainable growth for India in fair global climate agreement


