2009 is a crucial year for the world’s leaders to take important steps in the fight against climate change. They will meet under the UN in Copenhagen in December 2009 to decide on an international climate-change agreement – a revised Kyoto protocol. Ahead of the meeting, churches and development organisations around the world will be campaigning for a fair and sustainable deal in Copenhagen.

The global community is facing tremendous challenges to limit the global warming caused by greenhouse gases (GHG). The world is already suffering from the impact of global warming and the poor and vulnerable are hit the hardest. Southern Africa is a very vulnerable region in that sense. The voice from Africa in the negotiation is, however, essential.  

EJN has a history working with the concept of Ecological debt to understand international power and economic relationships. Climate change is possibly one of the most obvious examples of ecological debt. There is no doubt that rich industrialized nations play the largest role in generating greenhouse gases (GHG) and that the developing world already suffer the most of the dramatic consequences of the global warming. We are witnessing storms, floods and drought.

• Ecological debt is a concept that explains the injustice between people and nations and that helps us to under international economic relations. The fundamental question that is being posed is “who owes who?” The concept is a means of understanding the behaviour of exploitation and greed that has developed historically. The concept crystallizes the fact that people and countries have production and consumption patterns that have a negative impact on the livelihoods of others.
• Ecological debt combines financial, social and ecological dimensions of the current global economic system where the power and the negative contribution to the environment are in the hands of some. These patterns often have historical roots that need to be changed.  A new international agreement on climate change must include the fact that different countries have a different responsibility for global warming and different capability in economical terms to reduce their emissions is captured.

Within the work of Ecological debt, EJN together with PACJA (Pan Africa Climate Justice Alliance) and APRODEV hosted a workshop on Climate Equity Advocacy Workshop for Southern Africa on the 20th-21st May.  EJN will also organise a workshop to further develop the concept of Ecological Debt and Climate Change. The workshop is scheduled for 27-29 July 2009.