Vatican to attend Copenhagen’s Conference on climate change

(Dec.02,2009): A delegation of the Holy See will be attending the upcoming Conference in the Danish capital of Copenhagen on Climate Change. The five member delegation will be led by Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations in New York. The U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change will be held December 7-18.
In a related development, Caritas a network of aid organisations said that it will be joining with other humanitarian organizations to bring bishops and representatives from 25 countries to Copenhagen for the U.N. meeting on climate change. In a press release on Monday Caritas reported that it plans to send representatives to urge world leaders for climate justice, and campaign for a new deal that puts the needs of the poor first. The aid agency is working with CIDSE, which represents some 180 Catholic agencies, to bring representatives from: Mexico, Zambia, South Africa, North America, the Pacific Islands, Mozambique, Kenya and Europe.
Lesley-Anne Knight, secretary-general of Caritas, who will be present in Copenhagen, stated, "World leaders must agree to legally binding commitments to cutting greenhouse gases and to paying for the damage that climate change is having on poor communities. They must set a new vision with a shared responsibility to the Earth.” Knight said “ The outcome of Copenhagen must be part of a new global ethic that reconnects us to nature otherwise it will have failed, Knight added.
This agreement, the Caritas communiqué asserted, should include the commitment of developed countries to some $198 billion additional public financing per year by 2020 to support developing countries to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to develop sustainably. It also called for an agreement including a commitment to keep global warming and emissions down.