The north owes south
During this election campaign, I am concerned with who will represent Shropshire North in the next parliament. There are many important local and national issues at stake.
As a supporter of Catholic aid agency CAFOD, I hope that candidates of all parties in Shropshire North will consider global issues too, and commit to build on Britain’s proud record in looking outwards and working with others to tackle poverty, inequality and climate change.
Pope Francis reminds us that the climate is a common good; humans, animals and plants need a safe climate in order to live and survive.
We live in an interconnected world. To say we can’t help people at home if we help them abroad is to present a false choice.
We can and should do both. The Pope refers to an ecological debt between the global north and south due to the developed industrialised north having plundered the resources of the south, transported toxic waste from consumerism to the underdeveloped south and through climate change has made subsistence farming more difficult for the people of the south.
I am of the view that the global north owes the south and should do more to repay its ecological debt.
Anne-Marie Grovestock-Thompson, Oswestry
