Imagine churches, temples, synagogues, ashrams, and mosques all around the world calling their followers to prayer with the sound of a ticking clock to remind them of the urgent need to address climate change today. "Tck, Tck, Tck" is the central slogan for this year's Climate Week NY˚C because time IS of the essence. As part of the campaign this year to push for real CHANGE in global climate policy at the upcoming COP15 United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen, Religions for Peace, the oldest multi-religious coalition, brought together religious leaders from diverse traditions to express solidarity and urge government leaders to take action for improved global climate policy. I had the honor of attending the Religions for Peace "High-Level Consultation of Senior Religious Leaders on Climate Change," co-sponsored by the Global Campaign for Climate Change and hosted by the British Consulate General.
The main theme of this dialogue was environmental stewardship, and each religious leader's statement re-energized this classic religious concept using their own traditions. His Holiness Tep Vong, the Supreme Patriarch of the Buddhist Sangha of Cambodia integrated the Buddhist teaching of karuna, or compassion, as the necessary change of heart that will inspire us to love nature and change our over-consumptive lifestyles. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John O. Onaiyekan, focused on the Christian model of stewardship that sees creation as a gift, "God gave us this planet as our habitat … that we keep it well" and highlighted the common ground shared by all religions as members of "a global village." Indigenous Priestess Beatriz Schulthess of the Kolla Nation (Argentina) emphasized the native teaching that all of nature is interconnected and drew the vital link between massive poverty, ecological devastation, and unjust resource allocation, "it is the ones who are poor who actually feed the big cities." Swami Agnivesh, Hindu leader of the World Council of Arya Samaj, called for more ecologically sound rituals to replace religious practices that pollute natural reserves such as the Ganges River because, the "Creator is [in] Creation." French-Tunisian Muslim Religions for Peace activist Mehrézia Libidi-Maiza critiqued the Keynesian economic model of scarcity and insisted that "we have to work together to find the resources" that manifest a religious model of abundance.
Why should secular government leaders listen to religious leaders? In the case of climate policy, it may be more a matter of dollars and cents than faith. United Nations Assistant Secretary General, Olav Kjorven, pointed out that religion remains central to government policy even if the focus of climate policy remains largely economic because religious institutions represent the "third or fourth largest actors in the financial world." As the clock continues to tick towards COP15 this December, how will faith-based communities activate the grassroots message of their members to affect environment and social justice for a climate policy worth believing in?
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