The United Nations Climate Change Conference, running from Dec. 7-18, will put an international spotlight on the environment and will draw world leaders, including President Barack Obama, to talk about humanity’s role in global warming. The conference will also draw unprecedented attention from religious leaders and groups that have become increasingly mobilized on the issue.
ReligionLink has a number of resources for reporters covering this story, in particular our comprehensive source guide on religion and the environment. See all of ReligionLink’s environment-related editions here.
The Copenhagen conference continues a process that was launched in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro when representatives of 192 nations adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The pact signed at Rio set up a system for sharing information on emissions of heat-trapping gases but set no goals for reducing gases.
A subsequent meeting of 37 industrialized nations and the European Union in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 established what is known as the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol was never ratified by the U.S. Congress and it is due to be renewed or renegotiated by 2012.
Once again, 192 nations are expected to be represented at the climate summit in Denmark.
Here are some related items of interest:
Read a Dec. 3, 2009, background paper on the climate change conference at The New York Times. See also a ClimateWire article posted by the Times about a dramatic drop in the percentage of Americans who say they believe in global warming.
A Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted earlier this year found that concern about climate change is far lower in the U.S., China and Russia than in other major countries.
Read a Dec. 3, 2009, column at Sightings, titled “Faith and Science: At War No More.” It is written by Martin Davis, director of the Congregational Resource Guide and a blogger on environmental issues at CRG Green.
Read a Dec. 3, 2009, blog post, “Climate Talks Blow More Hot Air,” by Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council. Perkins and the FRC reflect the views of many conservative Christian skeptics.
Read a news release from a consortium of Catholic development groups that will be in Copenhagen to lobby for “climate justice.” The 180 Catholic development agencies from the Northern and Southern hemispheres are bringing representatives and bishops from 25 countries to the summit.
Catholic News Service writes about the Vatican delegation to the conference in this article.
Christian Today, a London-based newspaper, has posted articles in recent days about church leaders pushing for a commitment by wealthy nations at the conference to reduce emissions and about the Methodist Church altering its investment portfolio for environmental reasons.
A “pray for climate change” service held this week in Australia drew a number of global faith leaders, according to an Anglican Journal article. The leaders are in Melbourne for the Parliament of the World’s Religions, where climate change from a spiritual perspective is expected to be discussed.
