02.12.2014

Youth Climate Action Day: "Less is fair"

For the third year in a row, the Evangelical Church of Westphalia (EKvW), the United Evangelical Mission (UEM), the One World Network North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Bremen Mission are calling upon young people in Africa, Asia, and Germany to commit to protecting the climate with creative ideas. At the same time that the course for a new climate agreement is being negotiated at the UN Climate Change Conference in Lima, youth groups will be getting involved themselves and exchanging ideas through social media. For groups in Germany, the theme for this year's action is "Less is fair".

GLOBAL ACTION: ASIA

As part of a football tournament in Siantar, young Christians from four Indonesian member churches will be drawing attention to the consequences of global climate change: the young people from the congregations from the Christian Protestant Toba Batak Church (HKBP), the Christian Protestant Church in Indonesia (GKPI), the Christian Protestant Church Simalungun (GKPS), and the Christian Church in Indonesia (HKI) will be playing in a tournament against each other on 6 December.

Young congregation members from the Christian Protestant Karo Batak Church (GBKP) plan to plant trees in three villages in Karoland. The Sinabung volcano destroyed many fields and forests this year in this district of Sumatra.
Young people from the Youth Church Forum on the Environment in Rumah Jangga, Indonesia have devised a special campaign: they will use photographs and video to document the environmental damage from Medan, through Simalungun, to the island of Samosir. They will then share this documentation with the world through Facebook and Skype.

GLOBAL ACTION: AFRICA

The young people in Cameroon, Rwanda, Tanzania and Congo are putting together very different campaigns for Youth Climate Action Day. In Kalungu, a village about 45 kilometres from the Congolese city of Goma, young people from the Baptist Church of Central Africa (CBCA) are planting trees in a region where the soil erosion is already well advanced because of deforestation. Other young people are using the Climate Action Day to advocate for the goals and objectives of the Club for Friends of the Environment.
 
In Maluku, a congregation in the Community of the Association of Evangelical Churches of the Lulonga (CADELU) in Congo, sixty young people have sown grass and bamboo seeds to protect the soil from erosion. They also want to build storm sewers and make the local people and authorities more sensitive to the need for environmental protection. Young people from the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in Rwanda (EPR) also organised a football tournament, the purpose of which is to inform visitors about climate change and the environment. Together with young people from Rwanda, the young Christians from the Evangelical Church in Cameroon (EEC) are using their smartphones to share images, experiences, and stories in different languages from their environmental work.

The Bremen Mission is getting children in Ghana involved in Climate Action Day: schoolchildren from environmental clubs that are part of the RELBONET interfaith network are laying out school gardens together and becoming informed about local opportunities for climate action.

GLOBAL ACTION: GERMANY

German adolescents are also presenting various events for Youth Climate Action Day: in keeping with the theme, "Less is fair", VEM volunteers will be collaborating with Sarah Vecera from the VEM Young Adults Network to put on vegetarian barbecues in the Bielefeld city centre to publicise the effects of excessive meat consumption in the Western world. And at a meeting in Düsseldorf, young members of the Open Globe Groups of the One World Network will be discussing how to make their diets and food waste more climate-friendly. Pupils from the Cardinal von Galen Comprehensive School in Nordwalde will take advantage of their school's open doors event to set up an information stand about using cloth bags instead of plastic.
A group of confirmation candidates in Engern, by contrast, are having a try at "upcycling", making decorative Christmas ornaments out of old bicycle inner tubes, discarded computer keyboards, and damaged bulbs and offering these to the worshipers in their congregation on the second Sunday in Advent in return for donations to the UEM's tree-planting projects in African countries. 

BACKGROUND

People from Western countries, whose high CO² emissions make them largely responsible for climate change, bear fewer of its consequences than the countries of the Global South: the number of droughts in Africa and Asia is increasing, as is their duration, more and more crops are being destroyed by hurricanes and floods, and there is a growing risk of regional famine. In the words of Dr Jochen Motte, a member of the UEM Management Team and the head of the office of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation, "The theme of this year's Action Day is well chosen. It is precisely the people of the Western world who are being called upon to reduce their consumption and with it the production of greenhouse gases. The involvement of young people in Africa, Asia, and Germany reminds us of our obligation to finally take responsibility for protecting the climate. Germany will only be able to meet its targets for reducing CO2 if there is greater encouragement for expanding renewable energies and renouncing coal. The measures announced by the German Federal Government do not do justice to this goal."

Eva-Maria Reinwald, head of climate justice at the Office for Mission, Ecumenism and Global Responsibility, had this to add: "The forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima on climate change must set the course for a global climate agreement. Other issues must be discussed besides efficient targets for reductions in greenhouse gases, such as how to support states that are already suffering irrevocable damages and losses from climate change. Global solidarity and assumption of responsibility are necessary. The young people of Climate Action Day are already putting these values into practice."“

Young people can still participate in Youth Climate Action Day with their own campaigns. Information and suggestions for action are available at www.climateactionday.de and www.facebook.org/climateactionday.

Press contact:
Eva-Maria Reinwald, Office for Mission, Ecumenism and Global Responsibility (MÖWe), Olpe 35, 44135 Dortmund, Phone: (0231) 540923
Email: eva.reinwald@moewe-westfalen.de
 
Brunhild von Local, United Evangelical Mission, Communication & Media, Rudolfstrasse 137, 42285 Wuppertal, Phone (0202) 890 04-133
Email: local-b@vemission.org