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A message of achieving human dignity, and the right to hope, in a world threatened by climate change was proclaimed on 28 April by World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in a meeting convened on climate change by the Vatican.
“Climate change makes crystal clear what kind of change is needed for a sustainable future. Humanity has a right to hope, the right to a future, a right to life itself. No power on earth can destroy the thirst for human dignity and for life in just and sustainable communities,” said Tveit.
Tveit was among high-level invitees at the Vatican event, with other religious leaders, academics, scholars and policy makers including the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and Monsignor Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
The meeting was held as Pope Francis prepares an encyclical letter to bishops on environment and climate change for release this summer, ahead of the UN climate negotiations in December.
The role of religious leaders for climate justice was especially emphasised by the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, who said, “Religious leaders, we the peoples need your moral leadership to address climate change.”
“We have seen now for many years that action to address climate change is delayed, even to some extent blocked. Some deny the scientific facts, some ignore them, some feel paralyzed,” said the WCC general secretary. He went on to say that some even shy away from addressing the root causes.
“Looking to the next elections, some political leaders not always provide a long term commitment and vision that would move people and liberate the energies for change,” Tveit said.
He recognized that churches in the past have contributed to “a mechanistic understanding of nature that was to be subdued and exploited for narrow human interests.”
“They did not question the unsustainable development path of industrialized societies with the reckless consumption of natural resources and the ever growing use of fossil fuels. We have to acknowledge these sins of the past in order to be credible today,” Tveit said.
He spoke about the work of the WCC for climate justice. “We have as the WCC raised warnings about climate changes several decades, not at least through listening to the voices of sisters and brothers in the Pacific region. We have called for actions, for a just and binding treaty among the nations to commit the nations of the world to change,” Tveit said.
The WCC general secretary also quoted Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, affirming how he called climate change a spiritual crisis. “Spiritual values mean the highest values, the deepest feelings, the most solid moral platform, and the most decent qualities we have as human beings, on the basis of which to be creative towards the future,” he added.
Read full text of speech from WCC general secretary at Vatican meeting
