SOIL team saddened by US withdrawal from Paris Climate Agreement
As we shared last year, the SOIL team was pleased and proud that Haiti signed the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. It was a generous, though symbolic, gesture for a country that only produces 0.01% of global carbon dioxide emissions but bears the impact of climate change more severely than most nations. Amidst valid criticisms that the Paris Agreement should loosen its scrutiny for developing nations and strengthen its overall targets, which have generally been assessed to be weak, Haiti gathered the political will to ratify the Agreement in 2017.
Donald Trump recently tweeted that the United States would pull out of the Paris Agreement. For people in Haiti, already tense over the impending hurricane season and stifling heat, this decision couldn’t be more discouraging. The decisions that economically powerful countries like the United States make about climate will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations within their own borders, as well as previously colonized countries like Haiti, whose history of economic exploitation has led the country into the cycle of poverty, where vulnerability to flooding, mudslides, extreme heat, and disease mean the country is not able to make significant strides towards attaining food and economic security. By so publicly rejecting the climate change agreement, Trump is condemning Haiti and other vulnerable nations around the world to continue in this cycle, for without sustainable improvements in environmental resilience, such as those that a global commitment to combat change can bring, the cycle of poverty and environmental vulnerability will persist.
SOIL’s work has been recognized as a part of Haiti’s push toward climate resilience as the 2017 National Energy Globe Award winner. SOIL was also recently named one of Five Innovations for Regeneration by Regeneration International. We are proud to play a small part in Haiti’s fight against climate change, but we need your help to make a bigger impact. Help make a change in Haiti today by supporting SOIL’s work with a contribution of any size, and stay active at home by holding your elected officials accountable for climate justice. Just like sanitation, climate is global. It doesn’t stay contained within borders and it impacts all of us.
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