CLIMATE CHANGE – A Challenge for Faith Communities

I’m delighted to be with you at this Catholic Earthcare Conference. I was in Australia in March 2004 after a climate change consultation that the World Council of Churches (WCC) sponsored in Kiribati. During the March 2004 visit to your country, events were organised at which I spoke in Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart and it was at the Canberra event that I met Col Brown of Catholic Earthcare. Out of that contact, the invitation to join you for this event emerged.

One of my intentions in this presentation is to help you see your important work in Australia on climate change within a global context. I want to start by giving you a brief over-view of your faith community brothers and sisters around the work who are engaged in similar types of education and advocacy initiatives:

I share all this because I want to reassure you that you are not alone. People of faith around the world share the concerns that you have on the seriousness of climate change. There are various ways in which we can co-ordinate our efforts and I shall outline some of those during this presentation.

There is a common understanding among people of faith that the climate change issue represents a profound spiritual and ethical challenge. It represents one of the clearest examples of the distorted relationship between highly industrialised human societies and the needs of God’s creation. Further, there are clear ethical dimensions. The problem is being caused largely by the wealthier societies with their excessive levels of energy use and emissions while the impacts will be felt disproportionately by the poor of developing countries. It is in this sense an issue of international justice. But it is also an issue of inter-generational justice since it is being precipitated by current generations but future generations will have to face the full forces and consequences of our polluting actions.

Throughout the familiar creation story in Genesis 1, we have the repeated phrase “and God saw that it was good”. This assertion of the goodness of the earth begins a long trajectory by which the writers of the Judeo-Christian scriptures sketch a relationship of affirmation by God of what has been created. We hear it explicitly in this first chapter of Genesis and we read many celebrations of the beauty, majesty and bounty of the earth in the Psalms. Though there are times of pain and suffering reported in scripture when the earth seems barren or when God expresses anger at human disobedience, the image that predominates is of a God who brought creation into being and sustains it out of profound love.

Pope John Paul II’s 1989 message on the environment, The Ecological Crisis: A Common Responsibility builds on the recognition of the goodness of creation and points to the intended human response to God’s creative action:

In the Book of Genesis, where we find God’s first self-revelation to humanity (Genesis 1-3), there is a recurring refrain: “And God saw that it was good”. After creating the heavens, the sea, the earth and all it contains, God created man and woman. At this point the refrain changes markedly: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good (Gen 1:31). God entrusted the whole of creation to the man and woman, and only then – as we read – could he rest “from all his work” (Gen. 2:3).

The context for the writing of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures was an Israelite culture that was largely rural and agrarian. The people depended on the earth for sustenance and expressed their care of it through such processes as observing the Jubilee which allowed the land to rest and replenish itself. They also celebrated the earth’s bounty through religious rituals tied to the cycle of the agricultural year. Acknowledging God’s role in creation, worshippers presented the first and best fruits of the harvest to God.

In both the creation stories of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and in the covenant between God and Noah after the flood symbolised by the rainbow, God has taken the initiative to demonstrate respect, care and love for the earth – for it is good. If we are to love God, we must seek to love God’s creation as God does. For Christians, God’s love for the world reaches to almost unimaginable depths through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Our scriptural texts and theological heritage affirm that God did not just create earth and then hand it over to humans with unfettered ownership rights. For many years now, communities of faith have struggled with how to interpret the Genesis 1 references to humans being given “dominion” over creation. A very broad (though not universal) consensus has been achieved within religious circles that, while the scriptures may point to a special role of the human within creation, it is a role to be understood more as one of responsibility to care for creation and not one of ownership with unaccountable authority to do with the earth as we wish.

In partnership with God, humans have the duty and indeed the privilege to foster the well-being of all life. We find deep wells of spiritual nourishment by being engaged in community, by seeking the welfare of others who share this fragile planet - the human family and other creatures. This leads us to an understanding of the common good.

The common good is holistic. It encompasses people, creatures and habitats now and into the future. This represents the very antithesis of greedy self absorption in only our own prosperity and well-being. It moves us into the broad understanding of the meaning of our ‘neighbour’ as Jesus reminded us.

This virtue is not only a necessary one for individuals in leading morally good lives, but is also vital to the moral health of the larger community. Prudence is intelligence applied to our actions. It allows us to discern what constitutes the common good in a given situation. Prudence requires a deliberate and reflective process that aids in the shaping of the community's conscience. Prudence not only helps us identify the principles at stake in a given issue, but also moves us to adopt courses of action to protect the common good. Prudence is not, as popularly thought, simply a cautious and safe approach to decisions. Rather, it is a thoughtful, deliberate, and reasoned basis for taking or avoiding action to achieve a moral good. ^¹

A prudent approach to climate change includes a reasoned and systematic assessment of what we know about the issue as synthesised by the scientific community and deepened by the first-hand experiences of people living with the impacts of climate change. Based on that input, we can then make judgements about the kinds of actions, changes and new initiatives that are needed to reduce the impending threat. Prudence requires an active engagement with the issue because the current projections of a more passive business-as-usual approach point to increasingly serious climatic consequences arising from a warming atmosphere.

When the common good is threatened, our responsibility is to be in solidarity with those who are suffering and seek a shalom kingdom on earth where the life-sustaining needs of all are met.

As we examine the issue of climate change and poverty, it becomes clear that the most vulnerable in the world will be further deprived of life’s fulfilment as a consequence of climatic changes. Geography, history, economics and politics have led to the victimisation of millions of people who are now threatened by rising seas, increasingly intense storms and diminishing harvests as a result of droughts or floods. These are God’s children, members of the earth that is the Lord’s.

To be in solidarity with them, is to address both the causes and consequences of human-induced climate change. To be in solidarity with them is to facilitate opportunities for their voices to be heard and their stories told. To be in solidarity with them is to work with them toward the reduction of their current crises of hunger and poverty, the sharing of resources to facilitate adaptation to already-occurring and anticipatable climate change and the pursuing of changes in the high-consumption lifestyles and economic policies which contribute to climate change. Solidarity is not authentic if limited to expressions of good will. It requires action. As the World Council of Churches has observed in its report Solidarity with Victims of Climate Change, “solidarity must be practiced to be a living force”.^²

Human-induced climate change is being precipitated be the increase in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere primarily from the polluting emissions of industrialised nations over the past 150 years and yet the consequences are and will be suffered disproportionately by the poor and vulnerable in developing nations. Climate change is thus a matter of profound international justice.

The wealthier countries are using much more of their fair share of the atmosphere by their high emission levels. God’s justice demands a more equitable sharing and given the limited carrying capacity of the atmosphere, that means a major reduction in the levels emitted by wealthier societies. Justice is a responsibility that is shared by all in the covenant community and assigns a high priority to respecting the rights and caring for the needs of the poor.

There is both a retributive and distributive aspect to justice that is relevant to the relationship of climate change and poverty. The judgement or retributive dimension of justice has various manifestations including being held responsible for the suffering that one’s actions cause to others. Industrialised countries and wealthy elites in developing countries that emit high levels of greenhouse gases emissions are more responsible for human-induced climate change than the poor. God’s justice demands that those responsible be held accountable and required to change their behaviours that are causing harm to the vulnerable.

The distributive aspect of justice means in this context that there must be an equitable sharing of the earth’s resources including the atmosphere. The global ecological systems of the earth including the atmosphere can recycle carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions equal to about 2 tonnes per person per year. U.S. citizens each emit around 20 tonnes of CO₂ annually. Europeans average about half that. Most people in developing countries emit well under 2 tonnes per person annually.^³

The distributive aspect of justice moves us into a further ethical principle that is relevant to climate change and poverty – sufficiency.

Sufficiency means have enough of the essentials of nourishment, shelter and security to assure a good quality of life. In today’s world of great inequality, one can interpret sufficiency as a continuum. On one end, there are millions of people without adequate food, water, and shelter to give them a good quality of life. They suffer from insufficiency. On the other end, there is a minority within the world’s population whose consumption levels are so much greater than their needs that the consequences of their lifestyles are jeopardising the well-being of the whole planet. They live by gross over-sufficiency. For them (us), we need to ask what is enough to constitute a good quality of life and what is too much – endangering the planet and even diminishing their (our) own happiness and spiritual well-being.

The sacred texts and traditions of many faiths have long advocated moderation and emphasize the contribution that over-consumption and excessive materialism are making to creating the problem of human-induced climate change. How do we live lives reflected an understanding of sufficiency? That is our challenge in moving toward sustainable societies.

We need to move toward lives and economies characterized by sustainability over the long-term if we are to act with prudence, to be in solidarity with the vulnerable, to respond to the demands of God’s justice, and to address both the insufficiency of the poor and the over-sufficiency of excessive consumption. Sustainability implies using only as much of the Earth’s resources as its carrying capacity can endure and producing only as much waste as its ecosystems can recycle.

There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However, there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring…It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activity…Developing nations that lack the infrastructure or resources to respond to the impacts of climate change will be particularly affected. It is clear that many of the world’s poorest people are likely to suffer the most from climate change.^⁴

With these words, the national scientific academies in Brazil, Canada, China, France Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States joined to issue a historic statement to the leaders of their countries in anticipation of the G8 Summit in Gleneagles Scotland in July 2005.

From the first-hand experiences of people and from the synthesised results of peer-reviewed scientific research from around the world, climatic changes appear to be already occurring as a result of a warming of the global atmosphere. Human activity, especially in the industrialised countries over the past 150 years, has led to a significant increase in carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmosphere which scientists believe is a primary cause of most of the current warming. The impacts of climate change will be experienced disproportionately by the poor and vulnerable in the developing countries and in the Arctic.

The statement of the national academies of science relies heavily and makes frequent reference to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – for good reason. The IPCC reports are by far the most comprehensive and scientifically scrutinised analyses of what we know and don’t know about climate change historically, currently and in the future.

The IPCC involves around 3,000 scientists from over 100 countries who analyse all the major peer-reviewed research being conducted related to climate change and prepare syntheses reports. These reports are by far the most comprehensive and scientifically scrutinised analyses of what we know and don’t know about climate change historically, currently and in the future. The IPCC was established in 1988 jointly by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP). The IPCC is open to members of UN and the WMO.

In preparation of IPCC reports, authors draw on peer reviewed and internationally available scientific, technical and socio-economic literatures, manuscripts made available for IPCC review and selected non-peer reviewed literature produce by other institutions including industry. The IPCC reports are available at www.ipcc.ch

Rather than providing details from the scientific literature about the impacts of climate change on the most vulnerable in developing country situations which we have heard well-presented throughout this conference, let me instead draw on some witness accounts from around the world.

The sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japhet ... and from these the whole earth was peopled.
-- Genesis 9.18-19

In March in the districts of Machanga and Govuro, on either side of the Save River's mouth in Mozambique, it hadn't rained in a year and a half. For two years consecutive--2002 and 2003--hundreds of families lost their crops. Because of drought they are starving.

Then in March, a monstrous cyclone named Japhet hit the coast, with winds and horrendous rains. In Genesis, Japhet lived through the deluge and built a new life. But for people of Machanga and Govuro who survived this flood with his name, their life which was wretched is now even worse.

The cyclonic rain came much too late and violent to do good. This year's corn had dried up long ago. Instead, eroding torrents stripped soil from fields and deposited salt water, gouged out roads and left hundreds of families stranded for weeks. For the past year these people had been eating wild roots, wild fruits, leaves scrounged in the bush--but Japhet covered these under water, and when earth dried even these wild plants the people were depending on were spoiled.

Japhet's winds tore away thatch roofs and knocked down walls of stick houses. A quarter of a million people in Machanga and Govuro were affected. Many now no longer have houses. At least drought doesn't take your home away. In Machanga, Japhet wrecked more than 3000 houses. Hundreds of goats, thousands of chickens and ducks perished--families' entire capital. People fled and set up stick-and-plastic shelters under trees on higher ground.

Many of stories could be told from around the world about the devastating impact that human-induced climate change is already having on the most vulnerable.

Climate change is a profoundly spiritual issue having to do with our most basic values and our relationship to God as Creator and to God’s creation. We come to the issue of climate change not as professional scientists, economists, diplomats or politicians but first and foremost as people of faith aware that we are called to respond to this challenge to the well-being of God’s creation and the most vulnerable members of it.

We need to be open to opportunities to work with members of other faiths in addressing climate change. We have had such opportunities within the World Council of Churches during our presence at the annual negotiating sessions held under the auspices of the UN called the conferences of the parties (COPs) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. At COP3 in Kyoto Japan in 1997, we had numerous inter-religious events including a large service with Christians, Buddhists and Shintos at the Catholic Cathedral after which we all processed to a Shinto Shrine for a blessing by the priests there. In Marrakech Morocco at COP7 in 2001, we sponsored a Christian-Islamic Dialogue on Environment and Climate Change.

The primary task for communities of faith related to the consequences of climate change is to be active participants in reducing the causes. Only through substantially reducing the emission of greenhouse gases will the most devastating projections of potential impacts be avoided. We have major educational responsibilities within our churches.

In one sense, that is good news. If we care about the impact of climate change on the poor and vulnerable throughout the world, we need not feel powerless to do something. Every effort that we make to reduce our own energy use and use energy more efficiently is a positive contribution. At the individual and community level, there are many constructive actions that we can take and good resources available to assist us learn more and do more.

Individual lifestyle changes are not enough. These are necessary but insufficient if we are to make significant progress on reducing emissions. Our small-scale efforts need to be complemented by large-scale initiatives on the part of governments and corporations and there is a critical advocacy role for churches here. I know that in Australia there is a heated debate about energy options for the future. The churches can contribute to that discussion by emphasising the stewardship approach of placing priority on energy conservation, efficiency and the development and promotion of renewable alternatives. Australian churches can also contribute to the important discussions about your country’s moral responsibility to assist with the environmental refugees which climate change may create especially among the pacific islanders.

I know that there are some members of Caritas Australia at this conference. There is an increasing appreciation among faith-based and other non-governmental relief and development agencies that climate change will have major implications for their work in developing countries. Long-term development programs may be threatened by climate change impacts such as an increased frequency and intensity of drought, floods and tropical storms. Program priorities will need to incorporate climate change adaptation as a significant component to improve the resiliency of communities in areas that will suffer impacts from climate change. If there is an increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and other devastating climatic events, emergency relief agencies will find their resources stretched and will be called upon with greater regularity to mount major fund-raising campaigns. This can have severe consequences if ‘donor fatigue’ starts to manifest itself to a serious extent.

Communities of faith which are concerned about climate change and poverty have an important role to dialogue with their relief and development agencies about how they are addressing the climate change implications for their policies, programs, staff training and fund-raising. Water projects have been priority issues for development organizations for many years. Threats to water quality and access are also clearly among the imminent impacts of climate change. Thus, the issue of water is proving to be a common concern around which both the development community and the eco-justice community can mobilise and collaborate. That experience could prove helpful in expanding the focus on climate change impacts within the broader agenda of relief and development organizations.

One major emergency relief organization that has integrated climate change into its programs is the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.^⁵ They could be a resource for agencies wanting to move in a similar direction. Another good model is the UK-based coalition The Working Group on Climate Change and Development which includes religious and non-religious agencies: ActionAid International, Bird Life, CAFOD, Christian Aid, CIIR, Columban Faith and Justice, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Institute for Development Studies, IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development), MedAct, nef (new economics foundation), Operation Noah, Oxfam, People & Planet, Practical Action (formerly ITDG), RSPB, Tearfund, teri Europe, WaterAid, WWF. They have produced several excellent reports on the impacts of climate change on the poor and vulnerable in developing countries in Up In Smoke (2004), and Africa: Up in Smoke (2005).

Beyond the organizational and policy level issues, members of communities of faith can play a direct and tangible role in responding to the needs of the poor and vulnerable in developing countries through contributing financially and/or offering their services to their respective relief and development agencies. One can have considerable confidence that financial support given to faith-based relief and development agencies will go toward meeting the real needs of poor and vulnerable peoples in developing countries.

In terms of global ecumenical advocacy, the World Council of Churches maintains an on-going presence at the annual UN negotiating sessions on climate change called the sessions of the Conferences Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COPs). The COP11 will be held in Montreal Canada November 28 to December 9, 2005. The WCC will have a delegation made up of representatives from various regions of the world. Much of the focus of the WCC’s engagement will be on justice and solidarity for the victims of climate change. As well, we will be sponsoring a number of inter-religious events including a major service on Sunday December 4, 2005 in one of the large Catholic cathedrals in Montreal called St Joseph’s Oratory. At the end of this presentation, is the text of a “spiritual declaration” that will be part of the service. We would most welcome faith communities here in Australia using that declaration on Sunday December 4^th as a sign of solidarity with the faith community participants in Montreal.

One of the reasons that I was interested in accepting the invitation to participate in this conference is that we need you as Australian faith communities to be engaging your government. Australia plays a significant role in the international negotiations and it’s not always a good one. Along with the USA, Australia refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

It is critical to pressure for a change in your government’s position. There are federal areas of jurisdiction, access to resources, capacities to affect public opinion and responsibilities for international agreements which can either facilitate or impede actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions far beyond what municipalities and states can do. It is important to reinforce that the Kyoto Protocol is an international treaty ratified by over 150 governments (as of August 2005) which came into force as international law on February 16, 2005. The vast majority of the world sees the Kyoto Protocol as an important though modest step in global co-operation to limit the emissions for greenhouse gases. Becoming a party to the Kyoto Protocol would be a significant step in responding to ethical responsibilities to care for the common good and to be in solidarity with those most affected by climate change.

Finally, let me conclude by emphasising another critical role for faith communities. An issue such as climate change can seem overwhelming to many people and lead them to despair. We must be a source of hope. This is part of who we are – people of the light who know that eventually the darkness will be overcome by the light. The crucifixion was not the end of the story. Though the struggle ahead of us to tackle human-induced climate change will not be easy, we know that we are not alone. We live in God’s world. We find God and hope by working together in community. Indeed, we find God most poignantly in community and it is in community that God seeks to find us.

To be added to the WCC Climate Change Network and receive periodic updates of international and ecumenical developments, contact David Hallman at dhallman@sympatico.ca

People and other species have the right to life unthreatened by human greed and destructiveness.

Pollution, particularly from the energy-intensive wealthy industrialised countries, is warming the atmosphere. A warmer atmosphere is leading to major climate changes. The poor and vulnerable in the world and future generations will suffer the most.

We commit ourselves to help reduce the threat of climate change through actions in our own lives, pressure on governments and industries and standing in solidarity with those most affected by climate change.

1 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Global Climate Change, A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the Common Good, June 15, 2001. Available at: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/ejp/bpstatements.html

2 World Council of Churches, Solidarity with Victims of Climate Change, January 2002. Available at: http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/ecology.html

4 National Academy of Sciences (USA), Joint science academies’ statement – Global response to climate change, June 7, 2005, available at: http://nationalacademies.org/morenews/20050607.html and included as an appendix in this paper.

5 Information on the climate change program of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies is available at: http://www.climatecentre.org/

Spiritual Foundations	God loves Creation We are to respond to God’s love by caring for that which is loved by God Working for the common good
Theological & Ethical Perspectives	Prudence Solidarity Justice Sufficiency Sustainability
Climate Change – science, impacts and policy	Joint science academies statement: Global response to climate change Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
Impacts on the most vulnerable	Pacific Small Island States Developing country impacts
Faith Communities – responses and challenges	Witnessing to climate change as a spiritual issue Education within faith communities Faith-based relief and development agencies Collaboration in ecumenical advocacy initiatives

CATHOLIC EARTHCARE AUSTRALIA

Climate Change - Our Responsibility to Sustain God’s Earth