The UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen broke up on December 19 with a political “agreement”  but with no legally binding treaty to address the greatest crisis facing the world.

“I was born in 1992. You have been negotiating all my life. You cannot tell us that you need more time!”  These were Christina’s words to the government negotiators as she addressed the Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Christina is 17, and lives in the Solomon Islands – whose very existence is threatened by sea level rise in her lifetime. At the same time lead U.S.A negotiator Todd Stern referred to Copenhagen as nothing more than a “first step”.

Perhaps it’s time to listen to Christina and her millions of fellow victims of climate change! 

The crisis before us is one that we all face. The Rio Environment conference in 1992 named two principles to help us share responsibility for change as we face the environmental crises. “Polluter pays” and “Common but differentiated responsibility” were principles to which all countries gave their agreement. Now that it’s time to pay up, we find that these were weasel words by the greatest polluters. They refuse to accept their common but differentiated responsibility. Leadership no longer seems to lie with our governments.

Inside the Bella Centre, leaders of rich countries chose to ignore their scientists. The scientific consensus is that the rich world must cut our emissions of the gases that warm the earth by 40% below the levels that existed in 1990. This must happen within the next 10 years if we are to have even a 50-50 chance of not reaching the Point of No Return, when the Earth’s natural processes start to break down and warming becomes unstoppable.

So, do we listen to Christina and the scientists? Or to our politicians and the fossil fuel industries (coal, oil, gas) to whom they answer?

Pope Benedict XVI warns us in his World Peace Day message 2010: “The deterioration of any one part of the planet affects us all…Our present crises — be they economic, food-related, environmental or social — are ultimately also moral crises and all of them are interrelated,”

He reminds us that God made man and woman in his image and gave them dominion over the earth, So God called them to be stewards of creation, drawing from the earth what they needed and safeguarding its riches for future generations. “Environmental degradation challenges us to examine our lifestyle and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view.”

An event was organized during the Copenhagen Conference by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Caritas Internationalis. Joy Kennedy of the WCC Working Group on Climate Change said that climate change, at its root, is a profound moral issue.”

We must understand who we are as people in relation to the earth and God the creator of earth. “If we believe the planet is just a natural resource bank, there to be exploited, excavated, extracted, dumped on, then we will treat it that way. But if we believe we are part of a sacred creation dependent on its gifts for our very survival and for life, then human activity requires responsibility and we will act differently because we love and serve and protect our home.” She called the church to move away from a theology of dominance. We need to find ways to replace greed with an economy of enough if climate justice is to happen.

President of Caritas Europa, Fr Erny Gillen, spoke of the moral responsibility of religious people to involve themselves in the climate change debate. We “share the human condition with all other people living on earth. “It is time we have the guts to name the problem. It is not sex, not money, not the poor. It is the rich. Let’s make poverty history, but shouldn’t we say let’s make richness history, let’s make greed history.”

The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in December 1997, set binding targets for the industrialized countries that produced the majority of the Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other pollutants. They were obliged to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions by 5 per cent on average below 1990 levels by 2012. FACT:  In 2007, America’s greenhouse-gas levels were 16 per cent above 1990 levels.

Through The Emissions Trading Scheme, industrialised countries are allowed to “trade” their carbon emissions allocations. They could pay for carbon mitigation projects in developing countries to meet their reduction targets. But emissions trading, or offsetting, is not in fact a mechanism to reduce emissions. Such schemes are more about privatising the atmosphere than about preventing climate change; the emissions levels set by the Kyoto Protocol are several times higher than what is needed to stop a 2°C rise in global temperatures.

It is from 50 -200 times cheaper to plant trees in poor countries to absorb CO2 than it is to reduce emissions at source. So the burden of “clean-up” falls on the poor. This looks like a good deal from a market perspective. In terms of energy justice, it is evil to burden the poor twice – first with the climate disasters caused by CO2 pollution and then with offsetting the pollution of the rich.

In a globalised economy, addressing pollution by setting emissions levels for each country doesn’t work. In 2006, China produced 6.1 billion tonnes of CO2; the US produced 5.75 billion tonnes. But in per capita terms the US emissions were 19 tonnes of CO2, compared with 4.6 tonnes in China. But we must remember that China is producing goods for US companies that America will consume. For example Wal-Mart procures most of the products it sells from China.

England’s domestic economy produced only 2.13 % of the world’s emissions. But it is estimated that UK products produced elsewhere (China, India, Africa) amounted to between 12-15% of global total.  

A 2 degree Celsius increase in average global temperatures translates into a 3-3.5 degree increase in Africa. That means, according to the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance, another 55 million people could be at risk from hunger and water stress could affect between 350 and 600 million more people. ‘You cannot say you are proposing a ‘solution’ to climate change if your solution will see millions of Africans die and if the poor not the polluters keep paying for climate change.’ – Augustine Njamnshi (Pan African Climate Justice Alliance)*

Europe understands how much money will be made from carbon trading, since it has been using the mechanism for years. But developing countries have never dealt with carbon restrictions, so many don’t really grasp what they are losing. The carbon market is valued at $1.2 trillion a year, according to leading British economist Nicholas Stern. Contrast this with a mere $10 billion that rich countries are offering to developing countries,

THE BOTTOM LINE

Vandana Shiva suggests that regulating by carbon trading is like fiddling as Rome burns. The only just method is for Governments and the UN to impose a carbon tax on corporations for production – wherever their facilities are located – and for transport. (Interview with Amy Goodwin, courtesy  democracynow.org ) 

So, perhaps it’s not such a bad thing that there was no binding agreement reached in Copenhagen. After describing what 2 degrees would mean for Africa, Archbishop Tutu pronounced that it is ‘better to have no deal than to have a bad deal.’ 

Matthew Stilwell of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development–one of the influential advisers in the Copenhagen talks – says that the wrong kind of deal would ‘lock in the wrong approach all the way to 2020’–well past the deadline for peak emissions. ‘I’d rather wait six months or a year and get it right because the science is growing, the political will is growing, the understanding of civil society and affected communities is growing, and they’ll be ready to hold their leaders to account to the right kind of a deal.’

Stilwell accuses rich countries of trying to exchange ‘beads and blankets for Manhattan.’ He adds: ‘This is a colonial moment. That’s why no stone has been left unturned in getting heads of state here to sign off on this kind of deal. Then there’s no going back. You’ve carved up the last remaining unowned resource – the sky- and given it to the wealthy.’

Meantime, whether we are fellow citizens of planet earth or religious people, we must raise our voices to let our governments know that we will not tolerate selfish ‘solutions’ to leave things as they are and so to punish the people who have done least to cause this crisis and who stand to suffer the most. Once more the question “Am I my brother or my sister’s keeper?”becomes an urgent moral and religious question for each of us.   

The Copenhagen process has been marked by lack of transparency, bullying of poorer countries and the undue influence of powerful industrial lobby groups.

It is clear that our governments cannot be trusted to act for the good of all without the oversight and the questions of us their citizens.  

 * Naomi Klein, Copenhagen: The Courage to Say No, The Nation December 18, 2009

On December 11, 2009 the news was released that a U.N. draft agreement is now circulating with mixed reviews. So far the goals of the agreement are rather weak and they offer a standard for nations to apply voluntary (should) commitments in cutting emissions. It requests the following:

• Industrialized nations cut CO2 emissions by 25% by 2020.
• Developed countries provide “adequate, predictable, and sustainable financial resources, technology and capacity-building” to support the poorer nations in their struggle with climate change impact.
• Developing nations “may undertake autonomous mitigation actions,” rather then a specific binding commitment.

While the language in the draft is very weak it should also not come to the surprise of anyone who is aware of the international agreements. Whether the issue is climate change, human rights or global trade nations are almost always reluctant to cede their autonomy to international agreements and institutions.

The issue of climate change and its impact on the poor is of great concerns for the Catholic Church. Pope Benedict XVI expressed this concern in his most recent encyclical:

“This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources. … This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying” Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment.”

The Vatican is currently involved with the Copenhagen conference. Its position is to promote a strong standard for cutting carbon emissions and for financially supporting poorer nations that will suffer the most from climate change.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8LID2v7P2c

For faith-based communities like ourselves our concern with climate change is not based on science. Our concern is based on our experience of mission and ministry. Like Caritas the Passionists have missions throughout the world. Recently I was visiting the Asian communities in India. The conversation in that part of the world is not based on science, it is based on reality. Our communities in Indonesia, Philippians, Papua New Guinea and India are very much aware of the impact of climate change on the poor. Tsunamis, severe weather patterns, etc. are not debatable considerations. They are real phenomenons that are making a very real impact.

For those of us who are caught up with the scientific debate keep in mind the “Precautionary Principle.” During the scientific battle regarding the effects of tobacco this principle was used to suggest that in the face of a very real harm (lung cancer) even thought the scientific argument at the time was debatable, social policy should err on the side of addressing the social harm while the scientific debate continued. As a member of a Catholic Religious Community with missions throughout the world I can say that the harm is very much real.

The Catholic Church has three social principles that are relevant to our position with regards to climate change:

• Stewardship of Creation
• Promoting Solidarity and the Common Good
• Option for the Poor

Based on these principles and the real impact of suffering to the poorer members of the human community the Passionist JPIC office considers it a responsible moral position to act and support initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to promote social responsibility on issues related to climate change. The Passionist JPIC office prays that the Copenhagen conference produces an agreement that will have the international community working together on mitigating the effects of climate change and its effect on poor nations. However, no matter how strong or weak the agreement is, we also realize that the Catholic social principles are primarily applicable to all of us as individuals. Social policies are only as strong as the political will that comes from its citizenry. If we all adopt principles and practices on issues of social concerns then we will see our democratic institutions follow suit. The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change is a partnership of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. This coalition has some great resources on the spirituality and actions for promoting the Stewardship of Creation. One action that we can all take is the Catholic Climate Covenant.

Please also visit our Passionist Earth and Spirit Center which offers courses and further resources on the ecology based on the spirituality of Thomas Berry, CP Also click here for a pdf resource from the Earth and Spirit Center on Living in Harmony with Creation

The Passionist JPIC office would like to hear from our readers on the issues of social concerns that we share. Please feel free to offer your comments, thoughts or further resources regarding this issue.

The creativity of Catholic spirituality, and indeed Passionist spirituality, has to this point faltered somewhat in its attempts to expand its horizons to the “Passion of the Earth”.  The object of the desired com-passion feels distant from our emotional lives and cold in its impersonality.  Those who have been inspired by Berry’s insight have pursued scientific avenues of understanding human/earth relationships.   These findings are so new that they have barely emerged over the horizon established by age-old tradition.

Our solidarity with all life, from bacteria to trees to chimpanzees is beyond dispute scientifically, yet beyond the ability of our common sense to appreciate it.  Our solidarity with rock and lava, gas and water is beyond dispute scientifically and yet requires the vast expenditures of expert personnel and scholarly papers in international conferences to nudge our common sense even to acknowledge it.  Our solidarity with the sun, our home star, and all other stars and galaxies is beyond dispute scientifically, but rarely emerges in day-to-day consciousness except in the spiritual disciplines of those who pioneer the spirituality of human/earth relationships.

No wonder then that those who speak of “Gaia”, either as a scientific theory (that the Earth is best understood in the paradigm of a living organism), or as cultural icon (borrowing a kind of personhood, such as was attributed to the ancient Greek Goddess), are relegated to the significance of a sub-culture.

And all the while, the Earth endures progressively more intense suffering.  Even the very success of the spirituality of the “crucified ones”, intensified as it is within the Passionist Congregation in this new century, can be seen as paradoxically working against the emergence of reverence for the “Passion of the Earth”.  That is because our social reality, proceeding with a common sense that is deaf and blind to the scientific insights illuminating the human condition described above, proceeds on the assumption that human persons live, breathe, pray, mature and die as though none of it affects who they are and none of it need effect new behaviour.  But the suffering of the Earth eventually exposes this disconnect.  That is the importance of climate change to our culture and to our spirituality. In can be seen as the flip side of Gaia. More than any of its distinct dimensions: the pollution of water, the vehemence and unpredictability of violent weather patterns, the increase of toxins and diseases, the failure of traditional crops, the increase of desertification, the death of the seas, etc., climate change — understood as the whole complex of the altered physiology of the Earth — seems poised to break through the impasse. Climate change reveals Gaia.

As recently as March the 8^th, 2009, Thomas L. Friedman tried (quite successfully, I think), to break through to a new common sense about our “growth economy” when he wrote:

“We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese….

We can’t do this anymore.”   [Week in Review, p.12, New York Times]

But spirituality has an even bigger task.  Human suffering generated by such an economy is real, but ultimately “collateral damage” of an even deeper suffering.  A “flow-thru economy” could solve many of the human side effects of a non-sustainable economy, but it is a long way from realistic recognition of the “new human” (biologically, physically, cosmologically) required for what Berry calls a “mutually enhancing human/Earth relationship”.  That can only be initiated and sustained by a spirituality able to feel com-passion for the Passion of the Earth, which in turn can be expected to develop myriad creative responses toward its healing. 

Thomas L. Friedman quotes the Australian environmental business expert, Paul Gilding:  “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”   He remarks:

[Gilding] has a name for this moment – when both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once – ‘The Great Disruption’.” 

Perhaps such an economic disruption, because it can lift the opaque curtain of current common sense about the limits of Earth’s compliance with our growth economy, can lead to further, deeper revelations about the web of life that knits our solidarity with the Earth.  However, it seems to be too late.  Fast on the heels of this Disruption is what might be described as the “Gaian Disruption”.  That is because, sadly, our spirituality, detatched as it is from our earthling identity, is building up the Passion of the Earth just as feverishly as the “productivity” patterns of our economy portrayed by Friedman. 

It may well take this Gaian Disruption to open our eyes, finally enabling us to extend our com-passion. Passionists can join the vanguard of those who are beginning to discern this “turn to the Earth”.  We may even be able to bring some leadership to what is already a most difficult era of Earth history, progressing inevitably to more suffering and death.  Every expression of positive creativity we can manage because of our spiritual solidarity with the Earth will contribute to the productivity of the whole Earth community and its healing.

Healing — we have already passed the possibility of restoring the Earth.  Too many species have been extinguished.  Too much interference has crippled the Seas, too much poison has toxified the atmosphere.  It may be within the creativity of the Earth to generate another Cenozoic age, but for the foreseeable human future, we will be at the mercy of the spiritual and ethical wisdom we can acquire in what Berry terms an Ecozoic Age.  Everything else will be an untrammeled Gaian Disruption. A Passionist spirituality open to the Passion of the Earth enables a specific hope.  Within that solidarity we can establish “mutually enhancing relationships”.