The global crisis we can’t ignore

While the most obvious signs of the new normal are bushfires and super-cyclones, billions of people are facing more imperceptible changes brought about by climate change that are threatening their way of life and the ways they make a living. Decades of success in reducing poverty could be reversed without massive efforts to stop climate warming and to help people deal with the changes that are already upon us.

As the earth and rivers dry, as sea levels rise and glaciers shrink, and as agricultural land degrades in the face of expanding deserts, people and nations are being forced to make desperate choices. Should I migrate to the city or make a dangerous attempt to get to ‘the West’? Do I send my children out to work instead of to school in order to survive? Do I move my cattle onto new pasture land or take water from a neighbour’s well.  New challenges, tensions, conflicts, disasters, all fueled by climate change. So new thinking, new programmatic responses and greater agility are needed to respond to our fast-changing world.

As an organisation working in countries and communities severely affected by environmental degradation and climate change, we are deeply concerned at what we are witnessing and hearing. As a global organisation present in 100 countries, we have unique access to grassroots communities the world over. They have been telling us for years that things are worsening, that the seasons are unreliable. So, we are working hard to respond by partnering with them to build their resilience, to become climate-change and disaster-ready, and to respond to crises when they happen.

We commit to protecting the environment from further degradation because we understand that the impacts of environmental degradation and climate change amplifies existing vulnerabilities and inequalities, including those based on age, gender, class, ethnicity, ability and land-rights. Women and girls are particularly vulnerable to climate change due to pre-existing gender inequalities and social norms. Threatened livelihoods and competition for resources have proven to put women and girls at increased risk of sexual violence.

Climate change could push more than 100 million additional people back into poverty by 2030.

Global warming is likely to rise 1.5C above pre-industrial levels between 2030 and 2052 if emissions continue to increase at the current rate. The existing rise of 1C has already led to more extreme weather, rising sea levels and diminishing arctic ice.

In March 2021, World Vision joined the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration, a call to action to protect and restore global ecosystems by 2030. Our commitment to the Decade is reflected in our recently approved Environmental Stewardship Management Policy which calls for adaptation of our development and emergency relief programmes during design, implementation and decommissioning to understand our environmental impacts, ensure positive environmental outcomes, and mitigate the impacts from degraded environments, natural hazards and climate change on vulnerable children.