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Faith and Climate Change
Thursday 29 October 2009
The Archbishop of Canterbury hosted a meeting of faith leaders and faith-based and community organisations at Lambeth Palace to discuss the response of faith communities to the environmental crisis. With 40 days to go before the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit the participants have pledged to work together to raise awareness about the effects of 'catastrophic climate change' on the world's poor.
Faith leaders at the seminar
At the meeting a number of presentations will highlight the kind of action faith communities and faith-based organisations were already taking in the UK and with partners overseas.
In the first statement of its kind, signed by leaders from every faith community (including Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Bahá'í, Jain and Zoroastrian) the signatories recognise "unequivocally that there is a moral imperative to tackle the causes of global warming" and that "Faith communities have a crucial role to play in pressing for changes in behaviour at every level of society and in every economic sector. We all have a responsibility to learn how to live and develop sustainably in a world of finite resources".
They call for the UK government and G20 governments in particular to fight for an ambitious deal which offers hope of rises in global temperature being kept within two degrees centigrade.
The statement has been welcomed by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The Secretary of State Ed Miliband said: "Tackling climate change is a cause that unites people of all faiths. Each generation holds the planet in trust for the next and to fulfil our obligations to these future generations, we must succeed in getting a fair and ambitious agreement. We need the voice of all the world's religions in the coming weeks as we approach the Copenhagen summit."
Dr Williams said: "This is an important meeting - the first of its kind in the UK. We all have to do more to face the challenges of climate change. Faith communities have a crucial role to play. That was highlighted today as were some of the things already being done. We must do our bit and encourage others to do theirs. Together we can and we will make a difference".
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