GOAL calls for increased support for people who suffer biggest impact following UN climate report

GOAL has called for an urgent support for the world’s most vulnerable communities, who suffer from the impact of climate change most, as part of action to adapt to and tackle climate change. This follows the release of the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

GOAL Deputy CEO, Mary Van Lieshout, led GOAL’s call for increased national and international action.

“Through our work with vulnerable communities around the world, we have seen climate change multiply the threat of humanitarian crises. The lack of unified direction for action from the international community last year at COP26 means we have to urgently focus on supporting vulnerable communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change.”

“The IPCC report indicates that more droughts, floods, storms and other climate disasters will continue to happen. We need to enable people in vulnerable communities to not only survive disasters, but to be able to maintain health and livelihoods in the face of crises.”

In a Climate Change briefing paper published last year, GOAL made a number of recommendations for the Irish government and international community. While GOAL’s recommendations for Ireland to increase dedicated climate funding was realised following November’s COP26 climate conference, Ms Van Lieshout believes today’s IPCC report shows that even more needs to be done.

The Paper recommends that:

• Ireland increases investments in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
• Governments take collective action for food systems that are more equitable, resilient and sustainable.
• Ireland continues to protect the most marginalised and vulnerable girls and young women.
• Donors and governments commit to increased investment in climate adaptation activities aimed at strengthening sustainable livelihoods

“The UN predicts that the climate crisis will push an additional 120 million people into poverty by 2030, said Ms Van Lieshout, “the devastating effects of climate change are adding to existing environmental, social, health, political and economic challenges. Our colleagues on the frontline in impacted countries like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Honduras are seeing these effects first-hand and we know that actions and solutions cannot be delayed.”

“We cannot wait for the next international conference to act. If the international community is serious about tackling the climate crisis, policy change at national and international levels and global financial commitments must be delivered rapidly.”

The full Climate Discussion paper can be seen here:

https://www.goalglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/GOAL-Climatecrisis-briefingpaper2021-v2.pdf