COMECE, CCEE-CEC

COMECE: doing “everything possible”Mgr. Van Luyn, president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE), calls on the decision-makers of the EU and its 27 Member States to “do everything in their power” to ensure that an ambitious, comprehensive and just climate protection agreement will be adopted in Copenhagen under the umbrella of the United Nations”. The appeal is launched on the eve of the European Council meeting which will take place on 10-11 December in Brussels just as the UN Climate Conference is underway in Copenhagen. “The world community will only be able to cope with the challenge of climate change, if all politically responsible persons pull together”, declares Mgr. van Luyn. Calling on the countries to privilege global common good over narrow national interests, the president of COMECE says the EU “has in the past conclusively demonstrated that it is capable of leading worldwide efforts in the fight against climate change” and therefore asks “EU decision-makers to again take on this leading role in Copenhagen”. The prelate, according to whom “climate change is increasingly becoming a question of survival for future generations”, reiterates the plea made by Benedict XVI in “Caritas in Veritate” to hand the earth on to them in good conditions”.Mgr. Van Luyn recalls that developing countries in particular are suffering from the effects of climate change which has largely been caused by the industrialization and the consumption-oriented lifestyle of Western countries. “It is therefore not an act of charity, but an act of justice, if we enable developing countries through strong financial support to adapt to the damaging effects of climate change, and to offer them perspectives for ecologically sustainable growth”, he explains. Recalling that the goal of the agreement must be the “increase of global average temperature to less than 2°C”, the president of COMECE highlights the need for all countries to reduce their emissions. Accordingly, developed countries should transfer technology and provide financial support to developing countries, to help them invest in energy efficiency and renewable energies so that they can “adapt to climate change”. “We need today more than ever a holistic view of life, which is not founded on material richness, but on the richness of human relations, cultural and spiritual values”, he concludes.CCEE-CEC: peals of bells throughout the worldOn Sunday 13 December, all the churches of Denmark will ring their bells at 3.00 pm, and Christians throughout the world are invited to echo them by sounding their own bells 350 times at 15.00 local time. That’s the extraordinary initiative promoted jointly by the Christian Churches of Europe, by the CCEE and the CEC, to coincide with the UN Climate Conference now underway in Copenhagen. The number of peals is not casual: 350 are the parts per million of carbon dioxide within which we need to keep, in the opinion of scientists, if we are not to alter the climate. The Churches of Europe envisage a chain of chimes and prayers stretching in a continuous time-line from the Fiji Islands, in the South Pacific – which is the first region in which the sun rises, and where the negative effects of climate change are already making themselves felt – to Northern Europe, and right across the globe. The initiative is presented in a letter sent to the Churches in Europe in November and signed by Father Duarte da Cunha, General Secretary of the CCEE, and the Ven. Colin Williams, General Secretary of the CEC (Conference of European Churches). In their joint letter, the CEC and CCEE ask the leaders of the nations meeting in Copenhagen for a commitment to reduce their “dependence on increasing consumption of energy, in particular consumption of fossil-based energy. The industrialized countries – they observe – have to take the lead in these efforts, on the basis also of their responsibility for decades of accumulating greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere. The cumulative effect of these gases is one of the many challenges which we need to manage on the level of political decision-making”. The Churches are also convinced that “the issues discussed at the Conference and the challenges we face are not only to do with technicalities of climate change” and consider that “only with a really human ecology, which takes account of the rights but also the responsibilities which we bear towards each other and towards future generations, can a better care for the environment be foreseen”. So the letter appeals to the European Union to increase “its efforts to recognize the mutual responsibilities of member countries to combat climate change” and to the Churches to encourage “their respective governments” and to urge them, “with courageous generosity, to take strong action in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change. The impact of the economic crisis must not be an excuse for avoiding effective action on the defence of the environment”.