By Christine Campeau, Caritas Internationalis
Today marked the first day of the Barcelona Climate Change Talks. Delegates and participants to the conference were greeted to the sound of 1,000 alarm clocks. This wake up call was to remind these country representatives of the urgent need to make progress towards a fair, ambitious and binding deal. This is the last week of negotiations before the eyes of the world turn to the big UN meeting in Copenhagen where a deal needs to be signed, and so the clock is ticking.
In Barcelona, Caritas helped promote a global agreement to address climate change. During one of today’s events, titled ‘Climate Change, Food Insecurity and Hunger’, Inmaculada Cubillo, a food security expert from Caritas Spain, stressed that climate change is exacerbating the problem of food security. She highlighted that community-based development processes need to be promoted in order to enable the poorest and most vulnerable to build sustainable and climate resilient livelihoods and move out of chronic poverty and food insecurity.
In preparation for this event, a technical paper was created with key messages for the UN negotiators. Caritas India contributed to this report by calling for the need to treat all technological improvements in agricultural systems, inputs and practices as global common goods.
Communities should have easy access and control over resources such as seeds. Unfavorable policies that promote only a few particular improved seed varieties, and limits access to these seeds, threatens food security, said Sunil Simon of Caritas India. He added that the loss of traditional resilient crop varieties due to the promotion of mono-cropping has exacerbated the problems associated with climate change, such as drought. This has resulted in many small farmers giving up agricultural production as a livelihood and resorting to urban migration, which results in further climate risk.
With one week to go and our Climate Justice:Seeking a Global Ethic report on a dozen tables in the conference center, our delegation continues to stress the importance of our shared duty to respect the common good rather than using the earth’s resources as simply another trade-able commodity.
