FAITH4SDGs: Mobilising Faith Communities Around Environmental Justice (Goal 7)
FAITH4SDGs: Mobilising Faith Communities Around Environmental Justice (Goal 7)
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 7 seeks to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
Only 17 per cent of global energy consumption comes from renewable sources, not nearly enough to meet long-term climate goals at projected growth rates. Climate disasters have the largest impacts on the poor and most vulnerable, resulting in supply chain disruptions, hunger, drought and refugee crises.
KAICIID's Faith4SDGs project is profiling Interfaith Power and Light (IPL), a faith-based organization which unites faith communities around climate justice, particularly for low-income or vulnerable communities.
In this film, we've followed the work of IPL on Navajo Nation, the largest Native American territory in the United States, Over 15,000 homes on Navajo Nation lack electricity, accounting for 75% of all unelectrified households in the United States. Nearly 43% of the population lives below the poverty line. Together with its partners, IPL is providing solar panels to Navajo families as part of their commitment to environmental and social justice.
Join us for a film screening, followed by a Q&A session with guest panellists from the fields of renewable energy and environmental protection to discuss the growing number of religious actors moblising around a faithful response to climate change and inequality.
You are encouraged to submit questions and topics you would like our guests speakers to explore!
SPEAKERS
Dr. Auwal Farouk Abdussalam
Dr. Auwal Farouk Abdussalam is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geography and the Deputy Director of Academic Planning, and Head of the Quality Assurance Unit of Kaduna State University, Nigeria. Dr. Abdussalam received his PhD in Geography and Environmental Sciences from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 2014, with a specialization in Applied Meteorology. Although Dr Abdussalam specializes in Environmental Sciences and Climate Change Studies, he has, through his community service activities, established a track record in the area of Inter- and Intra- Religious Dialogue (IRD). He has also participated in numerous projects in the area of inter- and intrareligious dialogue, conflict management, advocacy campaigns and capacity building. In addition. He is also engaged in charitable and volunteering activities with NGOs. Currently he is a member of the Board of Directors for Jaiz Orphans and Widows Initiative (JOWI) and Savannah Crane Relief Foundation (SCRF).
The Rev. Fletcher Harper
Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, has been Executive Director of GreenFaith, an international interfaith environmental organization, since 2002. An award-winning spiritual writer and widely-recognized preacher on the environment, he has developed a range of innovative programs to make GreenFaith an international leader in the religious-environmental movement. He led multi-faith organizing for the 2014 and 2017 Peoples Climate Marches, played a lead role in the faith-based fossil fuel divestment movement, and coordinated the development of GreenFaith’s international work. Rev. Harper is a graduate of Princeton University and Union Theological Seminary. He served as a parish priest for ten years prior to joining GreenFaith. He accepted GreenFaith’s ‘Many Faith’s, one Earth’ Award from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in 2009 and was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2011. He is the author of GreenFaith: Mobilizing God’s People to Protect the Earth (Abingdon Press, March 2015).
Rocio Vizuete Fernandez
Rocio Vizuete Fernandez has been during the past 2 years an Operations Assistant Consultant at the Green Climate Fund, working in the Simplified Approval Process supporting the management of a pipeline approximately worth USD 2 billion. In her role she supports entities access funding for their climate change adaptation and mitigation projects or programmes with capacity building initiatives. Rocio has prior experience in the area of humanitarian action, having worked in the regional Asia-Pacific Office of the IFRC on migration issues, in the outbreak of the Rohingya crisis. Moreover, she has worked as a case worker for UNHCR in Malaysia.
MODERATOR(S)
Christine Luby
Christine Luby is a Public Affairs Officer at the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) in Vienna, Austria. She holds a Masters in Advanced International Studies from the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. Christine has worked in the field of public affairs and media since her graduation from Washington and Lee University in 2013. Previously she worked in Government and Public Affairs in the maritime and defense industries, coordinating media outreach on projects involving the US Coast Guard, US Department of Defense, and the US Department of Homeland Security.
