Climate Change

The United Church believes that climate change is one of the key ethical and religious challenges for our time. As people of faith, we believe that climate change requires not just a quick technological fix, but rather a conversion of how we live our lives on this fragile planet. We are summoned as people of faith to view the Earth not as a source of resource extraction and wealth generation, but as a community in which we live and move and have our being. We must work to ensure the repair of the world—making a new global covenant—through personal life changes and political action.

The emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are pushing carbon dioxide concentrations levels in the atmosphere higher than at any time in recorded history. Scientists with the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Changeestimate that human societies need to reduce their annual emissions of carbon dioxide by at least 60 percent in order to stabilize the CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere at levels which avoid serious interference with climate systems.

The Kyoto Protocol, which was negotiated in 1997, commits Canada to reduce greenhouse gases by 6 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. While Canada has ratified this protocol, we will not meet our stated commitments to reducing our emissions, but rather will have increased them substantially.

Yet, the Kyoto Protocol’s targets are themselves very modest, and we will need to make much deeper cuts to our emissions if we are to avert grave—and perhaps irreversible—damage to the Earth’s ecosystems and the living creatures they sustain. This means that we will need to make radical changes to our lifestyles as well as the way we generate, use, and conserve energy to transition toward sustainable communities and a sustainable economy.

Failure to act in a timely and decisive fashion will have serious implications for us and for future generations. Climate change will almost certainly lead to food and water shortages, more frequent and severe weather disasters, the destruction of species and ecosystems, and a rise in sea levels. These problems are likely to affect the impoverished most severely, even though most emissions are produced by those living in relative wealth.

There is a need to look at who is most responsible for the problem. Human-induced climate change is a result of industrialized countries releasing a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases and toxic waste into the atmosphere we all share. This is creating an ecological debt to less-developed countries, the most vulnerable, all other forms of life on the planet, and to the future. The countries with the largest "footprint" (negative impact) among the nations must now take on this responsibility and pay their climate debt.

The United Church began its work on climate change issues in 1988. In 1992, the 34th General Council adopted the policy statement "One Earth Community" which affirms 12 key ethical principles which guide the church’s work on ecological issues including economic justice, human responsibility, sustainable lifestyles, the protection of biodiversity, and ensuring the rights for future generations.

More recently, the 37th General Council adopted Energy in the One Earth Community in 2000, which calls us to move beyond dependence on fossil fuels and other technologies that produce emissions leading to climate change.

Current church work—much done ecumenically through KAIROS and the World Council of Churches—includes advocacy on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, energy conservation and retrofits for church buildings, and linking to global efforts of solidarity with those already being affected by climate change.

For more information, contact:

• Joy Kennedy
  Program Coordinator, Poverty, Wealth, and Ecology
  Tel: 416-231-7680 ext. 4069
  E-mail: Joy Kennedy