News
"We would like to light a candle" is how a World Council of Churches (WCC) statement to the UN climate change conference in Montreal, Canada, begins. The statement affirms that climate change is not only a technological, economic and ecological crisis but also a spiritual one.
The statement is to be delivered on 9 December at the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the First Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol by WCC climate change programme coordinator Dr David G. Hallman.
The statement, and the [non-fossil-fuel!] candle, will celebrate the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol, and evoke "the pain and disaster already suffered in various regions due to climate change". It will signal that "time is running out" for negotiating equitable and sustainable targets for post-2012 when the present protocol expires.
The candle will also symbolize "that what we suffer from is not simply a technological, economic or ecological crisis, but a spiritual crisis". It is for this reason that the statement includes a spiritual declaration on climate change drafted by faith community participants at the conference.
The declaration was circulated at an inter-faith ceremony attended by up to 1000 people at St Joseph's Oratory in Montreal on 4 December.In an earlier statement in support of WCC work on this issue, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I defined climate change as a "profoundly moral and spiritual problem".
The WCC has been working on climate change ever since 1990, when this was identified by the scientific community as one of the most threatening social and ecological issues of our times, affecting creation as a whole.
Representatives from over 180 countries are meeting in Montreal to negotiate the future of action on climate change. The talks are primarily about next steps in implementing the Kyoto Protocol, including resources needed by developing nations for adaptation to the impacts of climate change. The parties are attempting to start a process of negotiation for a climate policy framework that will be needed once the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
The full text of the WCC statement and spiritual call is available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/climatechange-cop11.html
The 12 August statement by HH Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the WCC working group on climate change is available at:
wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/jpc/climatechange-bartholomew-2.html
More information about the conference and ecumenical involvement on the Kairos Canada website:
www.kairoscanada.org/e/ecology/climateChange/copmop/index.asp