Some years ago I worked in Nigeria, helping to find peaceful solutions to conflicts. Its capital city, Lagos — one of the world’s megacities, with a population estimated at 14 million to 21 million — will most likely experience a sea-level rise of around 35 inches in the next few decades if current warming trends continue.

Even in this best-case scenario, which depends on the global community’s sticking to the Paris climate change agreement, many of the shops I visited and homes I passed during my years in the country will be flooded. The rising waters are already changing ways of life and pressuring people to leave their homes. In the coming years, experts predict that millions of people in Lagos will be forced to move.

Providing a welcoming home for these migrants will challenge all of us. Unfortunately, Nigeria is just one example of a highly populated, highly exposed coastal area facing rising sea levels and storm surges. Bangladesh, the Philippines and other South Asian countries join them. New York City, Rio de Janeiro and London are at risk as well.

As people of faith, we don’t just state our beliefs — we live them out. One belief is that we find purpose and joy in loving our neighbors. Another is that we are charged by our creator with taking good care of his creation.

The moral crisis of climate change is an opportunity to find purpose and joy, and to respond to our creator’s charge. Reducing the causes of climate change is essential to the life of faith. It is a way to love our neighbor and to steward the gift of creation.