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World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
23 June, 1997

WCC PARTICIPANTS IN SPECIAL U N SESSION WILL HOLD
GOVERNMENTS TO THEIR EARTH SUMMIT PROMISES

They are not expecting miracles, but  members of the World Council of
Churches' (WCC) delegation to the United Nations "Earth Summit+5"
session this week in New York City will remind governments to keep
their bold promises, made five years ago in Rio de Janeiro, to clean up
the environment.

"I don t have high hopes," admits David G. Hallman from Canada, who
coordinates the WCC's Climate Change programme and helped develop
the Council s Climate Petition encouraging governments to keep those
promises. "I think we're in a situation of needing to limit the amount of
damage that can be done."

Some 70 heads of state or government are expected to attend the
special session of the UN General Assembly 23-27 June to assess
progress on sustainable development since the
1992 Earth Summit.  An "ecumenical team" of 21 from the WCC s
Commission on International Affairs will also attend.

Most observers admit that the state of the global environment has
continued to deteriorate since 1992, with rising levels of toxic pollution,
greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste.  According to the UN
Department of  Information, renewable resources, particularly fresh
water, forests, topsoil and marine fish stocks, continue to be used at
rates that are "clearly unsustainable," while on most finance issues,
governments have not got beyond the fundamental North-South
differences that dominated the debate in Rio.

Governments attending the Rio de Janeiro meeting agreed to reduce
levels of gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2000.  Most countries, including
the US and Canada, won t make that target, Hallman reports. "They are
under great pressure not to take action by the fossil fuel and automobile
industries."

Members of the WCC team hope the publicity generated by the special
session, and pressure by other non-governmental organizations, will
force governments to renew their efforts to live up to their Earth Summit
agreements.

WCC team member Shanthi Sachithanandam of Sri Lanka says  this
week s special  session will give NGOs "an opportunity to lobby
individual delegates". She hopes the session will focus on the
globalization of trade and economic systems.

The WCC team wants governmental policies to aim at benefitting
grassroots people, many of whom suffer when resources are exploited
by large corporations. In local parishes, says Liberato C. Bautista,
assistant general secretary of the General Board of Church and Society
of the United Methodist Church in the USA ,  people listen to UN reports
about sustainable development and want to know the connection with
where their next meal is coming from, or how much they will be paid next
week. For Bautista the bottom line is "the sustaining not of development
but of people and communities".

Dennis W. Frado of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who
represents the Lutheran World Federation at the UN Office in New York,
asks, "When will we realize that our
security is related to whether our sisters and brothers live in a dignified
way rather than in hunger and squalor, which sometimes leads them to
desperate or destructive acts?"

Many governments "don't like the church to get involved in issues like
development and poverty", says Yenenesh Geleta, an educator from
Ethiopia and a member of the Evangelical Church of Mekane Yesus.
"They think the church should pray and that's it. The special session will
give us an opportunity to go back to our governments and advocate for
change."

**********
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 330, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but
works cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest governing body is the
Assembly, which meets approximately every seven years.  The WCC
was formally inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is
headed by general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church
in Germany.

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