Guest editorial.

Kerber, Guillermo ; Robra, Martin

The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 demonstrated that climate change has become a major issue in public policy and international relations. The issue of climate change not only engages scientists, politicians and environmentalists but also is a focus for public debate through the media. What role do churches play in this debate? What are the biblical, theological and practical perspectives that underlie their involvement?

This issue of The Ecumenical Review attempts to respond to these and related questions, focusing on the dimension of care for creation. As guest editors, we are pleased to have been able to collect articles by authors from various contexts and approaches who are involved in these debates. They not only come from different geographical contexts but also use different methodologies, which constitutes part of the richness of this issue.

Twenty years ago, in 1990, the process on Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) culminated in a world convocation in Seoul, Korea. This event marked a moment of great progress in bringing together these three crucial concerns of the ecumenical movement. The objectives of the JPIC convocation, as stated in a meeting of the executive committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1988, included promises "to make theological affirmations on justice, peace and the integrity of creation, and to identify the major threats to life in these three areas and show their interconnectedness, and make and propose to the churches acts of mutual commitment in response to them". (1)

Two decades later, this issue of The Ecumenical Review reveals some developments in the theological reflection and action of the churches on these topics, focusing on the dimension of care for creation. The wholeness of creation and the commitment for justice are two biblical insights that have guided ecumenical concern on climate change. These two concepts come together in the concept of "climate justice", which is part of the larger concept of eco-justice.

The WCC executive committee statement on the 10th anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol (September 2007) stressed that

   the Bible teaches the wholeness of creation:
   Life is created, sustained and made whole by
   the power of God's Holy Spirit (Genesis 1;
   Romans 8). God creates human beings out of
   the dust of the earth (Genesis 2). Sin breaks
   relationships among humankind and with the
   created order (Genesis 3 and 4; Jeremiah 14;
   Hosea 4:1-3). Bearing the marks of human
   sin, "creation waits with eager longing for the
   revealing of the children of God" (Romans
   8:19). God provided all creatures with the
   conditions to live life as it is meant to be, in a
   specific relation towards one another. When
   creation is threatened by climate change we are
   called to speak out and act as an expression of
   our commitment to life, justice and love. (2)

In fact, climate justice, as a specific expression of eco-justice, has been for several years the key word of the ecumenical movement's involvement on climate issues. Churches and ecumenical organizations joined hands in advance of the 2009 United Nations conference, in the Countdown to Copenhagen Campaign with its "Time for Climate Justice" demand, which remains the motto for the ecumenical campaign in 2010. The WCC--Caritas Internationalis side event at Copenhagen in December 2009 also focused on climate justice.

The climate change conference in December 2009 had enormous impact in the media. This Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was relevant because it was intended to reach an agreement for the period following the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (KP), which comes to an end in 2012. The Kyoto Protocol, the binding instrument that applies the UNFCCC, agreed on emission reduction targets during this period for industrialized countries and emerging economies (listed as Annex I countries in the KIP).

But the Copenhagen Accord, negotiated mainly by five countries (United States, China, India, Brazil and South Africa), fell far short of what was being asked by global civil society and the poorest countries. Furthermore, after the UNFCCC talks in Bonn in mid-April 2010, Yvo de Boer, the head of the UNFCCC Secretariat, said that it will be very difficult to achieve anything more than an overall architecture for the treaty. He added that a binding agreement seems to be, for the time being, just wishful thinking, despite an agreement to have two more meetings before the next COP in Mexico at the end of the year. Most civil society organizations and many states, especially the poorest, strongly criticized the Copenhagen Accord. Why? In a few words: it is not fair, it is not ambitious and it is not binding. At the time of COP 15 in Copenhagen, Ian Fry, representative of the government of Tuvalu, addressing the COP plenary session, said, "It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future." (3)

Cardinal Keith Patrick O'Brien from Scotland put it in a concise and incisive way at a meeting on "Responding to Copenhagen" held in Edinburgh on 13 April 2010:

   The Copenhagen Accord, from a moral point
   of view, is unacceptable. Its outcome is unacceptable
   as it is not a binding treaty; its
   solution is unacceptable as it does not adequately
   address the suffering of communities
   in many parts of the South; the process is unacceptable
   as it was negotiated by a few
   powerful governments giving their back to
   the rest of the world and especially poor
   countries. (4)

However, the mobilization of civil society around climate change at Copenhagen is something that also requires analysis from a theological perspective. This mobilization reached massive levels throughout the world, as, for example, through the 24 October International Day of Climate Action, convened by 350.org, (5) or the tcktcktck campaign, which had 15 million supporters. (6)

The increasing involvement of churches, the ecumenical movement and other religions is another factor to be taken into account. This involvement included creative activities such as the already mentioned Countdown to Copenhagen Campaign and the handover of half a million signatures by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Yvo de Boer. The ecumenical celebration in Copenhagen Cathedral, where Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams was the preacher, was transmitted live by Danish television. One of the best-known activities was the campaign for church bells to be rung 350 times to symbolize the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thousands of churches all over the world rang their bells and organized prayers and vigils devoted to care for creation] Beyond Christian denominations, various interfaith activities were also organized at COP 15. (8)

The intense work done in advance of and at COP 15 in Copenhagen cannot be understood without an awareness of what Christians and churches in various parts of the world have been doing for decades. The WCC programme on climate change was begun in 1988; The Ecumenical Review has included earlier articles in relationship to just this topic, such as David G. Hallman's "Ecumenical Responses to Climate Change: A Summary of the History and Dynamics of Ecumenical Involvement in the Issue of Climate Change". (9)

In the ecumenical movement's approach to environmental justice, a consistent effort has been made to go beyond the superficial "fashion" of mere lip service to climate change, and to address instead some of the deep implications it has for Christian theology and life.

This issue begins with some reflections presented in Copenhagen. These include a series of brief presentations made at a public theological seminar on "Creation and the Climate Crisis", hosted by the University of Copenhagen's Department of Systematic Theology and the National Council of Churches in Denmark. The guest editors would like to thank these institutions and especially the Reverend Mads Christoffersen and Professor Niels Henrik Gregersen, who organized the event, for agreeing to have the oral presentations published in The Ecumenical Review. The reflections come from biblical scholars and from systematic and social ethics theologians, and from different regions. They include Jakob Wolf (Europe), Barbara Rossing (North America) and Olav Fykse Tveit, then WCC general secretary-elect. We have kept the oral style of those presentations published here, though some have since been revised and authors have added some bibliographical references to their contribution. Jesse Mugambi's presentation is not published in this issue for reasons of copyright, but may be consulted online. (10)

Joy Kennedy's article, which follows on from these presentations, has a different style. From her long-standing lobby work at UN meetings, Kennedy analyzes the Conference of the Parties (COP 15): from the work being done by her church, the United Church of Canada, at the local and international level, and also in the context of her membership of two advisory bodies of the WCC: the Poverty; Wealth and Ecology Group and the Working Group on Climate Change.

Two South African scholars present the recent work of the South African Council of Churches (SACC) on climate change. Ernst Conradie looks at the use of the "see-judge-act" methodology in the development of the SACC's statements and work with the churches on climate change. Steve de Gruchy presents an inspiring piece on water and cholera that addresses an aspect of the water crisis. Steve's tragic death in February 2010, while he was river rafting, adds a poignant perspective to his references to water as elemental in both life and death. Given his extraordinary theological contribution to the ecumenical movement on this issue, as on many others, this issue of The Ecumenical Review is dedicated to his memory.

From Finland Ilkka Sipilainen presents some theological reflections on the climate programme of the Finnish Lutheran Church which focuses on the values of gratitude and respect as a way to mobilize people. From Latin America, Nancy Pereira Cardozo, a biblical scholar and pastoral activist with the landless movement in Brazil, shares a biblical and hermeneutical reflection, with some provocative and insightful comments on the power, creation and present condition of humankind from the work of the churches in Brazil.

John Chryssavgis, a prolific Orthodox author, is well known for his Cosmic Grace, Humble Prayer: The Ecological Vision of the Green Patriarch Bartholomew I, among other books. He brings the particular approach of Orthodox theology to our topic.

Two colleagues at the WCC--the director of Faith and Order, John Gibaut, and the coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network, Maike Gorsboth--address aspects of the water crisis in a creative collaboration.

The Ecumenical Chronicle section starts with the most recent message of His All Holiness, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, on the day of the protection of the environment. His All Holiness has been a pioneer among Christian leaders in addressing environmental concerns since 1989, and he has organized a number of activities to respond to the challenge of climate change. Some Regional Ecumenical Organizations have included climate change as one of the priorities for their work for the coming years; examples of some of their declarations (Africa, the Pacific) are included, as are global and national churches' studies (Finland, for example). A couple of interfaith declarations reflect how the topic has recently been addressed by religious communities or ethicists coming from different religious and secular traditions, in which national churches (Sweden) and the WCC have played a key role.

Finally, the book review section shows how care for creation has been addressed in various ways by theological scholars in different parts of the world (such as the United States, India, Scotland and France).

Although other relevant articles and documents could not be included in this issue of The Ecumenical Review due to space restrictions, the editors believe the present compilation highlights some of the most relevant aspects of care for creation and eco-justice in the ecumenical movement and hope the reader will feel invited to read further on this topic.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2010.00049.x

NOTES

(1) Cf. D. Preman Niles, "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation" in the Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement, 2nd ed., WCC--Eerdmans, Geneva, 2002, p. 631. The article is available online at: http://www.wcc-coe.org/ wcc/who/dictionary-article11.html (All web references accessed 14 April 2010)

(2) The WCC has released various recent statements on the climate crisis. These include the above-mentioned one, the Minute on Global Warming and Climate Change, the Statement on Eco-Justice and Ecological Debt and the Minute on the UNFCCC Conference of Parties--COP 15 in Copenhagen. The latter is included in the Ecumenical Chronicle section of this issue. All statements are available online at the WCC climate change webpage: oikoumene.org/climatechange

(3) "Future Not for Sale: Climate Deal Rejected", ABC News (Australia), http://www.abc. net.au / news / stories / 2009 /12 /19 / 2776604. htm

(4) Notes by the guest editors from the Cardinal's oral presentation at the "Responding to Copenhagen" Conversation, organized by Action of Churches Together in Scotland.

(5) Cf. www.350.org

(6) Cf. tcktcktck.org

(7) Cf. www.bellringing350.org. WCC feature smiles of COP 15 an http://www.oikoumene. org/?id=1750

(8) These include, among others, the interfaith celebration organized on 12 December at the Swedish Church in Copenhagen, and the side event on Climate Justice organized by Caritas Internationalis and the WCC. Additional events were sponsored by, among others, the Asian Muslim Action Network. An interfaith declaration with hundreds of signatures from various religious traditions was also released in Copenhagen: http://www.inter faithdeclaration.org

(9) The Ecumenical Review 49.2 (April 1997), pp. 131-40; see also six other articles on climate change in that issue, pp. 142-202.

(10) Adaptation to Climate Change in Tropical Africa--The Role of Local Christian Communities, Jesse N.K. Mugambi http://www.gronkirke.dk/ fileadmin/filer/Topmoedet_klimakampagner _mm/KU_seminar/MUGAMBI_ON_AD APTATION.pdf

Dr Guillermo Kerber (Uruguay) is the programme executive responsible for climate change issues at the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.

The Reverend Dr Martin Robra (Germany) is programme director for Ecumenism in the 21st Century at the World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.