Several months have passed since the November International Scientific Conference of SKCH entitled "Climate Change – Possible Impact (Not Only) on Population and Development Projects," yet the ideas from the presented papers still resonate in our minds. At the conference, both presenters and discussants agreed that addressing global warming should be a priority for us. Equally important as offering ways to mitigate the consequences of climate change, however, is finding and eliminating their causes.
Slovak Catholic Charity (SKCH), in cooperation with two faculties (Faculty of Education and Faculty of Natural Sciences) of Comenius University in Bratislava and under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic, organized a thought-provoking conference in the autumn about the future of our planet – in connection with global warming and the impacts of climate change on the population. Several weeks ago, a proceedings volume with contributions from this unique gathering was published.
Guest Speeches with Binding Messages
Already at the opening of the conference, it was clear from the speeches of distinguished guests that this would be a unique and in many ways inspiring and binding meeting. The Secretary General of SKCH, Radovan Gumulák, mentioned a specific example of drinking water scarcity in Kenya, where the charity is implementing a development project to increase food security. The Slovenian Ambassador to Slovakia, Stanislav Vidovič, highlighted six years of effective cooperation between Slovak and Slovenian charities.
The Director of ORPO (within the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic), Peter Hulényi, outlined the official development assistance scheme, recalling the importance of climate change as a cross-cutting priority. Bishop Paul Ouedraogo (President of Caritas Burkina Faso) presented the impacts of climate change on the population of sub-Saharan Africa and proposed solutions that foreign charities can implement to promote climate justice.
Climate Impact on Agriculture, Health, and Education
As part of the SKCH climate change conference program, the public could hear scientific papers in five panel discussions. In the first section, two physicians (MUDr. Ján Bodo and MUDr. Jozef Šuvada) addressed the impacts of climate change on development projects in the healthcare sector, and Assoc. Prof. RNDr. Peter Fedor spoke about monitoring exotic quarantine pests (within projects in the agricultural sector).
How climate change affects the population of Europe (including Slovakia) and what the new trends in climate research and its changes are – in the next two sections, this was aptly presented by: Prof. RNDr. Milan Lapin and RNDr. Pavel Šťastný (along with their younger followers Alexander Ač and Jozef Pecho).
Since climate change also affects state policies and population migration, four foreign and domestic speakers clearly presented: the migration process (not only in Africa) over the recent period.
Proceedings with Papers Available Online
The last panel discussion of the SKCH climate conference was titled: "Climate Change as a Topic within Development Education." The representative of the Irish charity Trocaire, Aoife McTernan, presented development education activities in Ireland. The charity's project team, concluding the last activities in the winter within the development education project for 170 secondary and primary schools in the Slovak Republic, examined how the consequences of climate change are covered in Slovak media and what further impact this has on public awareness and (development) education.
The conference was one of the final activities of the three-year development education project "Climate Change Doesn't Concern You. Really?", implemented by SKCH in cooperation with Karitas Slovenia. It was funded from EU sources, SlovakAid, and the own resources of the participating charities.
The proceedings of this unique conference (with speeches and individual scientific texts on the impacts of climate change on our lives and development projects – in Slovak, Czech, and English) can be freely downloaded in electronic version at: www.charita.sk, or here on the Prohuman website.
Photo report from the conference Author: Božena Baluchová, Photo: Palo Markovič