What can world's religions do about climate change?

As the nations gather in Durban for another round of talks on climate change, Mike Lowe asks what can the world’s religions bring to the table.

Another year, another meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Combatting Climate Change (UNFCCC) otherwise known as COP 17 (the 17th Conference of Parties). In the two years since COP 15 in Copenhagen the scientific evidence tells us that the situation is getting more dire. Figures for 2009-2010 show that global output of the greenhouse gas CO2 jumped by the biggest amount on record, exceeding the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. Meanwhile the world continues to warm, and a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation says that 25% of the world’s farmland is now ‘highly degraded’ as a result of climate change and poor farming practices. The international non-government aid agency Oxfam, reports that, already, the extreme weather events associated with climate change have pushed tens of millions of people into hunger and poverty. Yet despite all the evidence, this year’s COP meeting in Durban, South Africa, is not generating anything like the same kind of buzz and expectation that the Copenhagen summit did.

On Sunday, the day before the talks started, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu hosted a mass rally to highlight the voices of the world’s diverse faith communities. Titled, We Have Faith – Act Now for Climate Justice, the rally included leading African musicians as well as hearing from faith leaders and campaigners. A petition was handed over to the UNFCCC with over 40,000 signatures calling for ‘neighbours to treat the earth with respect’ and to embrace a legally binding climate change treaty.

What can the world’s faith communities bring to the table?

The first and most obvious point is to emphasise that this is a moral issue. Listening to some of the arguments against taking strong action sounds depressingly like the arguments used to defend the slave trade in the 1800s. Arguments like, ‘If we do this then there will be economic collapse’ or ‘if our country stops doing this, it won’t make any difference because other countries will continue to do it anyway.’ You could substitute the words ‘end slavery’ with ‘cut back CO2’ and the arguments are the same, practically word for word.

In response, Archbishop Tutu likened climate change to the battle against apartheid. ‘Now we are facing another huge, huge enemy, and no one nation can face this particular enemy on its own,’ he said, adding that, like apartheid, climate change ‘cannot be defeated in isolation’. Pope Benedict sent a message urging conference delegates to reach agreement on a responsible, credible response which takes into account the needs of the poorest and of future generations. Many other religious leaders and groups sent similar messages.

Faith groups remind us that moral considerations come before economic or political concerns – not the other way around. But faith groups also form a large political constituency in their own right – arguably the world’s largest and most influential group of civil society organisations. So far, these groups have not been mobilised around the politics of climate change. But that could start to change if the secular political processes continue to fail to deliver results.

Politics aside, there are some key ingredients which faith communities can bring. As Archbishop Tutu said, no one nation can solve this on its own. This calls for massive trust-building – not something which politicians are very good at, but something which lends itself to a spiritual approach. Elements of this approach might include:

• a recognition that we are an interdependent community, not a bunch of separate individuals. If the ship goes down we all sink together regardless of whether we are in first class cabins or in third class down in the hold.
• the Golden Rule – ‘do to others as you would like them to do to you’ – is common to all religions. This means not expecting other countries to make sacrifices that you would not be prepared to make yourself.
• the principle of taking responsibility, being prepared to do ‘what is right’ regardless of whether it’s easy, popular, or whether anyone else is also doing the right thing. All too often politicians make excuses instead of making changes, saying ‘we will not make a change until everybody else changes’. The principle of ‘starting with yourself’ is not only more honourable, but it takes away the excuses of others.
• an alternative to materialism. Study after study has shown that increasing material wealth only leads to happiness up to a certain point. Once people achieve a basic level of material comfort, buying more stuff doesn’t make them any happier. But those of us who live in ‘developed’ countries face a daily bombardment of advertising messages telling us that our happiness depends on buying this or that product. Perhaps that partly explains why there is a correlation between time spent watching TV and levels of unhappiness. The world’s spiritual traditions teach something else – that happiness and fulfilment come from what we give more than from what we get, and from the quality of our relationships with others.

A delegation from Initiatives of Change is on the ground in Durban working to build trust and to offer the support of the Caux Forum for Human Security. You can read their reflections on the process in the IofC environment blog.

At this point in history, many lack faith and hope in a better future. The world’s religions certainly have an important role to play in offering faith and hope to the world. But when St Paul wrote 2,000 years ago about the three ‘gifts’ of the spirit – faith, hope and love – he said that ‘the greatest of these is love’. If those representatives of the world’s religions can find a way to bring the quality of love into the negotiations, that may be the greatest gift they can bring the world.

Mike Lowe is editor of the global website of Initiatives of Change. His varied career has included teaching English in Poland, running training programmes for young leaders in Eastern Europe (www.f-4-f.org), and developing a 'Discover the Other' programme of workshops. He lives with his family in Melbourne Australia.

NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.