A climate for change

The world’s leaders must show courage as they prepare for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen from December 7-18.

Climate change is a question of acute concern for every person. And yet the governments of many of the world’s richest nations find themselves in a bind: while they may acknowledge the need to reduce carbon emissions, the price their citizens may have to pay in prosperity and comforts could represent an electoral obstacle. This is particularly true for the United States, whose Congress is unwilling to commit to reducing US carbon pollution by the necessary 2 billion tons by 2020.

Selfish priorities will likely diminish the odds for concerted international cooperation in urgently addressing climate change, with no regard for those affected most severely by it  the world’s poor  or future generations for whom it may well be too late to clean up the mess they will inherit. The rich will continue to insist that the poor and our children pay a high price for the sake of profits and affluent lifestyles.

Some argue that climate change is not, in fact, caused by human activity. This runs against an overwhelming scientific consensus. But even if there is doubt about the causes of climate change, it is nonetheless prudent to take precautionary measures and reduce carbon emissions. Equivocation on this is purely self-serving.

Already in 1990 Pope John Paul II called for an ecological conversion. Two decades later, some governments still vacillate, reluctant to convert beyond platitudes because it is not in their immediate interest to do so.

In a message to a UN summit on climate change in September, Pope Benedict noted that we are all called to exercise responsible stewardship of creation, to use resources in such a way that every individual and community can live with dignity. Climate change therefore is an issue of both responsible environmentalism and social justice.

Resources, however, are not used is such ways. Invariably, those who suffer the most are those who did the least to cause environmental degradation.

Climate change will produce humanitarian disasters, and is doing so already. The number of people affected by weather-related disasters believed to be associated with climate change has more than tripled since the 1990s, according to the Catholic funding agency Caritas. In 2007 alone, more than 74 million people were victims of humanitarian crises originating from natural disasters, Caritas said.

The desertification of large areas of arable land in Africa, Asia and Latin America as well as water shortages could lead to large-scale famine and even wars, experts warn.

Concurrent with reducing greenhouse gasses, it will be necessary to develop, fund and implement sustainable food production systems in countries most adversely affected by climate change. The means must be advanced by which weather-related disasters can be managed.

But even when it comes to funding such programmes, the developed nations are offering much less than what is required, evidently regarding this as a form of foreign aid. This constitutes a denial that their reckless emissions of noxious gasses places on them the ethical obligation to make compensations to those who bear the brunt of environmental degradation.

There are some world leaders willing to adopt measures to decrease carbon emissions to sustainable levels and to assist those regions worst affected by climate change. They must go it alone if some countries, even and especially the United States, place themselves outside a coalition which seeks to avert a potential catastrophe.

And so we must pray that the leaders in Copenhagen in December will create a climate of change.