Good Sams in Bali

pathways, DECEMBER 2007

 

 

 

 

 

The international community is meeting in Nusa Dua in Bali, Indonesia, from December 3-14 to negotiate future global action to address the effects of humanly-induced climate change.

 

Good Samaritan Sisters Geraldine Kearney from Sydney and Claire Anterea from Kiribati (right) are part of a 10-person delegation from the Pacific Calling Partnership - a group of organisations and individuals who are concerned about the threat climate change poses to Australia's low-lying Pacific neighbours.  Members of the delegation will have representatives from Australia, the Torres Strait Islands, the Carteret Islands and Kiribati.

 

Good Samaritan Congregational Leader, Sr Clare Condon, said the meeting was important and timely.

 

"We need to act with urgency to the challenge of climate change and we need to work in partnership with our Pacific neighbours," she said.   "I was pleased that Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd made both these points in his acceptance speech on Saturday, November 24.

 

"We in Australia need to take responsibility for our contribution to climate change and recognise our ecological debt to our low-lying Pacific neighbours.  A recent United Nations report puts Australia third in per capita emission of greenhouse gases."

 

Sr Clare said that during 2007 the Good Samaritan Sisters had been celebrating the 150th anniversary of their foundation. The theme of the year-long celebrations has been Who is my neighbour?

 

"Our needy neighbours in our region are those living on low-lying Pacific Islands.  They are vulnerable in the extreme to the effects of climate change," Sr Clare said.

 

"No matter where you stand in South Tarawa, where 30 per cent of Kiribati's population lives, you are no more than 300 metres away from the ocean and no more than two metres above sea level.

 

"Our neighbours in Kiribati are already seeing the effects of rising water levels.  The people of Kiribati do not have the resources to counter the effects of increasing storms, higher tides and water contamination.  The displacement of communities will inevitably occur.  One of the messages that members of the Pacific Calling Partnership want to deliver in Bali is that good neighbours must stick together."

 

The Pacific Calling delegates will be official observers at UNFCCC.  They have been allocated a time slot for a side event, in which they will use videos, dance and position papers to communicate their personal experience of the impact that climate change is already having on their communities.

 

"UNFCCC in Bali will test the resolve and the courage of the international community," Sr Clare said.  "Together we need to create a way forward and so save our planet from the devastating effects of humanly-induced climate change.  And we must start by helping our closest neighbours."

 

 

Four of the 10 delegates, including the Good Samaritan Sisters, recently conducted a seminar on leadership and climate change in Kiribati. Twenty participants from Kiribati attended this seminar which was opened by President Anote Tong who spoke passionately about the drastic impact that climate change is already having on the country and the need for Kiribati to focus on adaptation, re-location and skills training in order to pursue labour opportunities in developed countries, such as Australia.