Friends of the Environment

One of Aghsan Foundation crosscutting organisational principles

Details

READING TIME

3 min

AUTHOR

Aghsan

TOPIC

Crisis

Aghsan Foundation commits to respond to the global climate crisis and environmental degradation by increasing the adaptive capacities of people affected by climate change and by ensuring that our own conduct is nature-positive. Climate change is the defining crisis of our time and disproportionately impacts Iraq’s most vulnerable people. By making green thinking and action an organisational priority, Aghsan Foundation acknowledges that climate change is a global phenomenon that increasingly interacts with the drivers. Aghsan Foundation must address climate change systematically and ambitiously to address the current trends.

People affected by climate change need a strong advocate to ensure protection. Empowerment of the most marginalised will help to ensure that they will not be left behind in global climate action. In particular, stronger efforts are required to obtain data-based evidence for how we can include – rather than exclude – people affected by climate change. In light of this, Aghsan Foundation will sharpen its focus on climate adaptation in programmes. We will aim to increase the climate resilience of those we serve. We will carry out initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations. And we will advocate for the rights of persons affected by displacement and conflict in situations negatively affected by climate change or environmental degradation.

Framework for Climate and Environment

The Framework on Climate Change and Environment explains the Aghsan Foundation's ambitions to respond to climate change and environmental degradation in contexts of forced displacement. It elaborates our ambitions and commitments to tackle the displacement challenges that are already being amplified by climate change, and to mitigate and prepare for those to come. Climate change is a global phenomenon that “increasingly interacts with the drivers of displacement movements” and disproportionally affects developing countries, which today host 80% of the world’s refugees and displaced persons. People affected by displacement, therefore, need a strong advocate to ensure protection and empowerment of the most marginalised, and that they will not be left behind in global climate action. Climate change and environmental degradation can be threat multipliers as climate-related risks may exacerbate conflict dynamics and increase the impact of other drivers of conflict and fragility. Through this framework, Aghsan Foundation is underlining the importance of addressing displacement in the context of climate change as we work to ensure protection of forcibly displaced people.