Educating consciences ” “” “

The tenth International Conference of Climate Change (COP 10) is being held in Buenos Aires from 6 to 17 December. In preparation for this important world event, the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) published a report with the title “Ranking Power” in Brussels on 30 November (see next page). The document declares that “in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the energy sector is the most polluting” and denounces the major energy production companies for being largely insensible to the problem, because they privilege energy produced by the combustion of fossil fuels (especially petrol and coal). Even if there is greater awareness of the problem in Europe, European energy companies still do not excel in the field of sustainable energy sources. According to the WWF, greater efforts should be made instead to exploit renewable energy sources (water, wind, sun) and improve the efficiency of power plants. Meanwhile at the Buenos Aires Conference, the industrialized countries that have signed the Kyoto protocol, now embraced by Russia too, have pledged to define the details of the dual regime of reductions: those to be carried out within the domestic walls in every state and those to be realized through carbon emissions trading and programmes of support for the developing nations. The stakes are very high and we know that the hoped-for success of the Buenos Aires Conference is only the first essential step to prevent the catastrophes to be feared from the process of climate change now underway. What can the Churches and religions do in a sector that seems in the first place political, scientific, economic and technical? They have no specific competence in this field, but they can start out from the presupposition enunciated so well at the beginning of Vatican II’s Constitution of the Church in the Modern World “Gaudium et spes”: namely, that “the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the men of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted in any way, are the joy and hope, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts”. If climate change is a problem due to human action, as asserted by serious and internationally recognized studies, though some economically interested sources express opinions aimed at demonstrating that the doomsday scenarios are false alarms, the Churches must in any case take note of this situation and find a new field of action in the safeguard of the creation. So it is no accident that the new “Compendium of the social doctrine of the Church” has dedicated one of its 12 chapters (Chapter 10) to the safeguard of the environment, presenting a highly documented argument in some twenty pages. In no. 470 it says: “The climate is a good that needs to be protected and requires that, in their conduct, consumers and industrialists develop a greater sense of responsibility. …The environment is one of those goods that market mechanisms are unable adequately to defend or promote… Particular attention should be paid to the complex problems concerning energy resources. Those that are non-renewable, on which the highly industrialized countries and those of more recent industrialization draw, must be placed at the service of the whole of humanity. In a moral perspective based on equity and intergenerational solidarity, continuing efforts must also be made, through the contribution of the scientific community, to identify new energy sources, develop alternative ones and raise the safety levels of nuclear energy. The use of energy calls into question the political responsibilities of states, of the international community and of businessmen; these responsibilities must be inspired and guided by the constant search for the universal common good.” The task of the Church, apart from setting a good example in the efficient energy management of its own properties, remains in the first place that of awareness-raising and educating consciences. Karl Golser, Theologian Fact-File The CCEE (Council of the European Episcopal Conferences) has organized 6 meetings for the delegates of the Episcopal Conferences responsible for questions relating to the environment: Celje (Slovenia, 1999), Bad Honnef (Germany, 2000), Badin (Slovakia, 2001), Venice (Italy, 2002), Wroclaw (Poland, 2003) and Namur (Belgium, 2004). The initiative will also continue in 2005 thanks to the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN), born in 1998, after the second Ecumenical Assembly in Graz (1997), which has convened a meeting of the delegates of the episcopal conferences at Basel (Switzerland) from 4 to 10 May 2005 to discuss the question “The Contribution of Christians for a Sustainable Europe”.