Holy See addresses Copenhagen Climate Change Conference

(December 18, 2009) The head of the Holy’s See delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has complained against the world community’s slowness in coming up with clear and firm political will for an effective answer to the devastating effects of climate change, saying individuals and groups are doing more. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the UN in New York, addressed the climate conference in the Danish capital on Thursday. Over 300 world leaders have flown into the Danish capital in an effort to salvage a Climate Change pact in the last hours of the two week conference. A draft text is considering a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius, backed by a new fund of $100 billion a year to aid developing nations. Archbishop Migliore told the conference participants that “the moral crises that humanity is currently experiencing, be they economic, nutritional, environmental, or social oblige us to establish new guidelines.” He noted that while global governments are slow to reach agreement on new programmes to counter climate change, individuals, groups, local authorities and communities have already begun an impressive series of initiatives based on two-pronged action: adaptation and mitigation. He said that while technical solutions are necessary, the wisest and most effective programmes come from focussing on information, education and the formation of the sense of responsibility and the stewardship of creation. These efforts, Archbishop Migliore said, “are about working on lifestyles, as the current dominant models of consumption and production are often unsustainable”.