AUSTRALIA has several Catholic organisations on a mission in Bali to help ensure the Church has a voice at a United Nations summit on climate change and in future responses to the crisis.
The Australian Church representatives are part of a 13-member delegation participating in the conference.
Their involvement is part of a long-term strategy to develop the networking and negotiating skills necessary to influence international climate change policy.
The delegation, comprising members of Church organisations including the Edmund Rice Centre and Good Samaritan Sisters, as well as Pacific Islanders, arrived for the opening of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) on December 3.
They will be there until December 14 during which time they will give a presentation entitled “Torres Strait, Carteret Islands and Kiribati Call Out!”
Many of the Church delegation members are part of the Pacific Calling Partnership (PCP) launched in May last year by the Edmund Rice Centre in response to the plight of people affected by climate change in the islands of Kiribati.
All partners are united by a common concern regarding the effects of climate change on low-lying islands in the Pacific and Torres Strait.
They also come under the general umbrella of the Climate Action Network of Australia (CANA) which will also be attending the UNFCCC.
Those in the Bali delegation include Good Samaritan Sisters Claire Anterea and Geraldine Kearney; PCP co-ordinator Louise Robards; Ken Bryant and Stephanie Dunn from the Catholic Education Office, Wollongong; and representatives from Torres Strait Islands, Kiribati, the Carteret Islands and Tonga.
Co-ordinator of Edmund Rice Centre’s Eco Justice program Jill Finnane said the delegation’s involvement in the UNFCCC was part of a long-term strategy to develop skills needed to influence international climate change policy.
Many members of the delegation first met during a study tour by 10 Australians to Kiribati in October to learn about the implications of global warming for local residents.
The 11-day climate change conference in Bali, being attended by more than 180 nations, aims to craft a blueprint for negotiations leading to a new pact for addressing global warming.
Under this pact, industrialised countries will be pressed to massively reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases from the end of 2012, when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.
