Media CenterCRS and Others Urge Congress on Funding for Green Climate Fund
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Michael Hill
Catholic Relief Services
443-955-7110
[email protected]
WASHINGTON, DC Nov. 24, 2015 – Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has joined scores of faith-based organizations in a letter urging Congress to fully fund President Obama’s $500 million request for the Green Climate Fund (GCF), money that will be used to help the poor around the world adapt to a changing climate.
“We come from different faith traditions, united across theological lines by our deep concern for humanity and all of God’s Creation,” the letter states. “The Green Climate Fund represents an important step in global cooperation needed to build a more resilient world and to move us along the path to low carbon energy development.”
The GCF came out of the 2010 United Nations International Climate Change Conference and has been set up as an independent organization based in Seoul, South Korea. Its mission is to raise and allocate funds to projects that help mitigate and adapt to global warming.
The $500 million in the administration’s proposed FY2016 budget is part of the $3 billion that the United States has pledged over the next four years. U.S. contributions are just part of the $10 billion in pledges from a wide variety of countries representing diverse regions and income levels.
“People living in poverty around the world have contributed least to the phenomenon of climate change, yet are most impacted by it. Our nation of great wealth and influence has contributed much to it,” the letter states. “Addressing the harmful impacts of climate change upon the most vulnerable peoples and the future of all God’s creation is the moral responsibility of our nation, and also our sacred task as people of faith.”
The letter was signed by 35 national organizations and denominations and many more local and regional groups.
The letter, noting that the nations of the world will meet in Paris next week to begin negotiations on a new global climate change agreement, says that, “Congressional appropriation of the funds to meet the US pledge to the GCF is vital to our leadership in these negotiations and to building trust between developed and developing countries.”
Fully funding the GCF was also a major point of a letter sent to Congress last month that was signed by CRS President Carolyn Woo along with Archbishop Thomas J. Wenski of Miami, Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, NM and Sister Donna Markham, president of Catholic Charities USA.
Read the letter to Congress on the Green Climate Fund.
###
Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. The agency alleviates suffering and provides assistance to people in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding. For more information, please visit crs.org or crsespanol.org and follow CRS on social media: Facebook, @CatholicRelief, @CRSnews, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest.