'Sacred duty' to care for creation

A worldwide coalition of churches and non-Christian faith communities is needed to drive humanity's 'ecological conversion', enabling it to overcome the threat of climate change, Britain's environment minister, David Milliband, told a high-level conference here.

Convened by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP), the two-day high-level seminar on 'Climate Change and Development' last Thursday and Friday resulted from a suggestion to the Holy See made by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Excluded from the conference room, journalists were invited to interview seminar participants during coffee breaks, with a few presentations (including Mr Milliband's speech) made available. The 81 participants from 20 countries included scientists, academics, diplomats, senior Catholic prelates and members of religious orders as well as representatives from other Christian churches.

Introducing the seminar, Cardinal Renato Martino, the PCJP president said that climate change issues highlighted the challenges of humanity's sacred duty to care for creation, ensuring that its stewardship of the environment benefited all - as set out in the Social Doctrine of the Church.

Mr Milliband, the UK's secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs, stated that climate change "is a moral and ethical issue, not just an economic and environmental one". Calling for a worldwide mobilisation of governments, business and citizens, the minister emphasised the key role for the Catholic Church and other faith communities in nurturing .a new global ethic. Policy responses must be grounded on principles of sustainability, social justice and stewardship of the environment.

This year must be the year when the international community injects a new momentum into developing an international framework of commitments to address climate change, Mr Milliband added, rooted in proactive national policies for a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy.

France's ambassador for the environment, Laurent Stefanini, as well as the Argentine climate change negotiator, Ambassador Raul Estrada Oyuela, both focused on the huge diplomatic challenge ahead to achieving a broadly based international agreement within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol which would deliver the huge greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cuts needed by 2050 to stave off environmental catastrophe caused by excessive GHG-induced global warming.

Negotiations for establishing new commitments starting in 2012 (when the Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period ends) are due to be launched at UNFCCC's 13th conference of contracting parties in Indonesia in December. However, last week's one-day debate on climate change in the Security Council had shown continuing divergences in positions of major emitting nations.

The two speakers from Africa, Sharon Looremata, a Masai from Kenya representing the international NGO Practical Action, and the Catholic Archbishop of Tanzania, Paul Ruzoka, both drew dramatic pictures of climate change impacts already devastating the lives of rural Africans, with drought destroying harvests and livestock and driving desperate farmers into the festering city slums.

The US scientific community is urgently appealing to the churches and other faiths for moral leadership on climate change and environmental issues in general, Dr Mary Evelyn Tucker of Yale University told the conference.

"Today's young people are in deep despair, looking for a sense of inspiration that religious communities can give to play a role in the world transformation that is needed," she said.

Speakers from other churches as well as Catholic representatives confirmed to The Sunday Times that they had urged the Pope to issue an encyclical focusing on Creation, and related climate change issues, while calling for a worldwide religious mobilisation.

The Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Rev. James Jones, stated that the Archbishop of Canterbury, who leads the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican Communion, would strongly support an international ecumenical statement and joint action on climate change, led by Pope Benedict XVI.

Also supporting this view, Elias Abramides, the Greek Orthodox Church's representative to the 347-member World Council of Churches climate change working group, set up in 1991, urged the Vatican to expand its present low-profile role (through a single Holy See representative who changes each year) in the ongoing UN negotiations.

Fr Gearoid O'Conaire, OFM, of the Franciscan Justice Peace and Integrity of Creation Commission, said that the Vatican should convene a second 'Assisi meeting' (the 1986 meeting brought together all the world's faith leaders to discuss peace) focused on climate change and creation issues.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Cardinal Martino stated that while encyclicals "take time", he "did not exclude" the possibility of some sort of joint declaration on climate change and related "Creation issues", at some point, by the Pope and other religious leaders.

In his message to the Conference, Pope Benedict said he hoped that "this significant initiative would contribute to research and promotion on lifestyles as well as production and consumption models imprinted with respect for creation and the real needs for sustainable progress of all peoples ...as set out in the Social Doctrine of the Church".

However, in his closing statement to the conference, the Cardinal was reported to have been non-committal on the Vatican's next steps, while confirming its deep concern with the 'reality' of climate change and the need to cope with its impacts.