By Milliam Murigi
Faith leaders and climate advocates call for urgent action to turn global climate pledges into solutions that reach communities facing drought, floods, food insecurity and displacement.
The announcement came as faith-based organisations, civil society groups and climate actors launched Africa Can’t Wait: Interfaith Voices for Just Climate Action, a campaign seeking to put African communities at the centre of climate decisions ahead of the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP31).
The campaign, launched in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, during the 14th Conference on Climate Change and Development in Africa, CCDA-XIV, seeks to bridge the gap between international climate commitments and action on the ground.
Speaking during the campaign launch event, Lorna Gold, Executive Director of the Laudato Si’ Movement said that Africa stands at the centre of both climate vulnerability and opportunity.
Across the continent, faith actors and communities are already delivering climate action through locally led adaptation, resilience, renewable energy and clean cooking, restoration and nature-based solutions, while advocating for greater access to climate finance.
Yet, communities continue to experience the consequences of climate change, including drought, floods, food insecurity, displacement and loss and damage. Africa Can’t Wait seeks to close the gap between global climate commitments and the action reaching communities, bringing the voices, experience and solutions of African communities into national, regional and global climate discussions.
“Africa cannot keep paying the price for commitments that remain on paper. Climate action should go beyond targets and negotiations to protecting lives, human dignity, land, water and livelihoods,” Gold said.
The campaign will focus on four areas: climate finance, adaptation, resilience and loss and damage, renewable energy and clean cooking and restoration and nature-based solutions.
It will also place particular emphasis on showcasing what faith actors are already doing on the ground, using evidence, stories and community experience to strengthen climate advocacy.
Through its partners, the campaign will document and amplify faith-led climate action across Africa, connecting implementation realities with the policy decisions that shape climate finance, adaptation, energy and nature.
“Faith networks across Africa have not been waiting for climate commitments to become action. Through grants, partnerships and locally designed programmes, they have been supporting communities to adapt, build resilience and implement practical climate solutions shaped by their own priorities and realities. This gives us something powerful to bring to the global climate conversation: evidence of what just implementation can look like in practice when communities are at the centre of designing and delivering solutions,” said Rudelmar Bueno DeFaria, General Secretary, ACT Alliance.
A key target is to collect one million signatures in support of just and rights-centred implementation of climate commitments. The signatures are expected to bring together faith communities, young people, women, civil society organisations and communities around a common demand for faster climate action.
According to Guro Almas, Programme Director of the Norwegian Church Aid Advocacy Programme Africa, many of the solutions to Africa’s climate crisis are already within African communities.
This is why the campaign seeks to ensure that African faith leaders, young people and communities have a stronger voice in demanding climate justice and influencing global climate politics.
“Many of the solutions to Africa’s urgent climate crisis lie with African communities themselves. Faith communities, civil society and community actors all over Africa are already delivering on locally led adaptation, resilience and climate action. They demand urgent action to finance African solutions, no longer accepting empty promises or delays in implementing lifesaving commitments,” said Almas.
According to Dr. Tinashe Gumbo of the All Africa Conference of Churches, the urgency is particularly acute because faith actors are often among the first responders when climate-related disasters strike.
The campaign also seeks to change how Africa participates in global climate negotiations. Dr. Pius Oko, Regional Programme Manager at GreenFaith Africa, said African countries and communities should not only be invited to international climate meetings to describe the damage they are experiencing.
They should have a role in shaping decisions on climate finance, adaptation and solutions.
“We must be at the table to shape the decisions, the finance and the solutions,” Oko said.
The mobilisation will continue as the campaign builds momentum towards COP31 and COP32.
