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Catholic Relief Services wants supporters to urge key senators to increase funding of international adaptation programs in climate change legislation.

Catholic Relief Services is asking Catholics to take action.

“Contact your senator now and urge that any climate change legislation considered in the Senate allocate $3.5 billion of funding generated by the bill to international adaptation programs starting in 2012 and increase rapidly to $7 billion annually by 2020 so that people living in poverty around the world can be protected from the effects of climate change,” a statement on the CRS Web site reads.

“The Senate Environment and Public Works, Finance, and Foreign Relations Committees responsible for climate change policy will soon consider legislation that begins a serious and overdue effort to face up to our moral and environmental challenges,” it reads.

CRS and the U.S. bishops want any climate change bill to lower greenhouse gases and protect the poor and vulnerable — both at home and abroad — “who contribute least to climate change but are likely to suffer its worst consequences.”

The Church, CRS said, lifts up “the moral dimensions of caring for God’s creation and the needs of the most vulnerable among us” in the climate change debate. Catholic teaching calls Catholics to uphold the life and dignity of the human person by alleviating human suffering and promoting justice and solidarity worldwide.