Paris is finally here! COP21 begins today as over 190 world leaders gather to negotiate the fate of our climate. Feels weird writing that our climate is up for negotiation but that is the unfortunate reality of the situation. Though, not everything about the talks are unfortunate. We are lucky enough to have amazing leaders in various communities reaching out to the global climate community to ensure that we properly care for creation as God intended us to do.
From Pope Francis to Christiana Figueres, global leaders work tirelessly for the climate, in turn, saving a countless number of lives. But they can't do it alone. Leaders need other leaders, at local levels, to fight for the climate along with them. For instance, the People's Climate March, an event that took place in over 2000 cities around the world this past weekend. Leaders from faith communities and their counterparts in business, higher education and local governments, demonstrated why they need leaders of countries to make morally guided negotiations at this year's climate talks.
To all the climate leaders out there, keep up the good work!
Why climate deal is everyone's business
Katharina Rall | CNN
(CNN)As governments from more than 190 countries descend on Paris next week to negotiate a new climate change agreement, they will have to consider both scientific and political realities. But to come up with a plan that works, they will need to fully grasp how climate change is already affecting the lives of people like Mathilda, a schoolgirl growing up in one of the poorest regions of Kenya.
Mathilda, 15, is Turkana, an indigenous people that has survived by raising livestock in a semiarid region bordering Ethiopia, South Sudan and Uganda. Mathilda's school, like most schools in the area, doesn't have access to clean water and sanitation facilities for its students. So instead of spending their whole school day learning, Mathilda and her classmates start their day by walking two hours to the closest riverbed to dig for water -- water that is anyway most likely not safe to drink. They do the same thing again in the afternoon, so they often lose around half of their school day fetching water.
