World Vision accepts the growing scientific consensus that human activities are leading to climate change.
World Vision acknowledges the reality and danger of human induced climate change as detailed in the Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
As a Christian organisation, World Vision has a duty to care for God’s creation.
The theological dimension of climate change is based on the idea of stewardship, not ownership. Humanity has no right or mandate to overexploit the Earth or to cause the extinctions of other species that God has created. We will be called to account for our treatment of the Earth, as well as for our treatment of the poor and the oppressed. Industrialised countries have unknowingly but unjustly taken far more than their fair share of the atmospheric sink available for development. Therefore, the developed world should give developing countries every assistance to meet the challenges brought on them.
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Photo by Enkhbayar Purevjav.
©2008 World Vision International |
Climate change has the potential to make poverty much worse.
The poor are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, the least able to protect themselves from its effects and the least able to recover from climatic disasters. "It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
World Vision’s concern for the poor obliges us to address issues related to climate change.
The solutions proposed to help mitigate and adapt to climate change will affect every country’s future development. Climate change will affect almost every aspect of World Vision’s work and mission in the years to come. As one of the world’s leading development NGOs, World Vision recognises that to serve the poor faithfully, we must take the challenge of climate change seriously.