By Jacinta W. Odongo, Media Officer, Uganda Episcopal Conference
 |
| The Caritas Uganda Executive Director, Msgr. Ndamira addresses the participants during the meeting |
Environmental experts in Uganda have called upon the central and local government as well as religious leaders from different denominations to enhance collaboration to take real action in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation.
Speaking during the 4th Caritas Uganda Annual Meeting held on December 5, 2016, the Director of the Great Lakes Institute for Strategic Studies, Dr. Godber Tumushabe, who was also the Chief speaker, urged the government and religious leaders to galvanize decisive action to fight global warming which is a big threat to human race. The meeting, which was held in Kampala, was aimed at providing an expert appraisal of Uganda’s response to the 2015 Paris Agreement as well as other key International Conventions and Protocols on the environment and climate change and its adverse impact on the population.
“An appraisal of how Uganda has implemented international agreement gives you a mixed record in the sense that in terms of laws, policies, legislation and creating institution the country has actually performed well because most of these frameworks are in place,” he said adding. “But, when it comes to actual implementation that is where we have a problem, thus for almost two decades we have been facing a number of environmental challenges which includes the declining forest cover, degradation of wetlands, high increase in pollution and the phenomenal climate change such as extreme weather events like prolonged drought.”
 |
| Participants of the meeting during the sessions |
He said that the faith-based community is part of the broader Civil Society movement and plays an absolutely critical role in reaching out to its followers to change their behaviour, provide guidance to take the right action on climate change and demand smart policies on combating climate change.
The meeting was held under the theme, Beyond Paris 2015: Enhancing Partnership in the Struggle to Save the Planet Earth. According to the Executive Director of Caritas Uganda, Msgr Francis Ndamira, the issue of the environment and climate change concerns every race, religion, culture and doctrine.
“Human beings have participated in destroying the environment but we also have the moral obligation to fight the harmful effect to the environment. However, we can only achieve this by working together as a government, Members of Parliament and religious leaders,” he explained.
Apart from the environmental experts, the meeting also attracted other participants including practitioners, policy makers and selected segments of the general public such as Members of Parliament, Diocesan Caritas Directors and the media among others.
Meanwhile, in June, 2015 Pope Francis, urged world leaders to hear “the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” in an Encyclical on the environment called “Laudato Si”. Pope Francis’ Encyclical is a worldwide wake up call to help humanity understand the destruction that man is rendering to the environment and his fellow man. The document’s scope is broader in many ways as it looks at not only man’s effect on the environment, but also the many philosophical, theological and cultural causes that threaten the relationships of man to nature and man to each other in various circumstances.
∽End∽