wfn.org | Religious leaders rebuke Bush administration over Kyoto Protocol

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Note #6470 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

4-April-2001
01115

Religious leaders rebuke Bush administration over Kyoto Protocol

Global responsibility more important than national interest, CEC official
says

by Edmund Doogue
Ecumenical News International

GENEVA - Religious leaders in Europe and the United States have expressed
deep concern about the U.S. government's decision last week not to implement
the Kyoto Protocol, which is intended to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

	The protocol was negotiated at an international meeting in Japan, in 1997.

	Europe's leading ecumenical organization, the Conference of European
Churches (CEC), has sharply criticized the Bush administration's decision,
and has urged the European Union to make "a strong response." At the same
time, six senior Christian and Jewish leaders in the U.S. have written to
U.S. President George W. Bush requesting a meeting with him about his
environmental policy, "especially around issues of climate change." Their
letter does not directly criticize the U.S. government but is clearly an
expression of their concern.

	Keith Jenkins, director of  CEC's Church and Society Commission has written
to Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister, Lena Hjelm-Wallen about the U.S.
decision. Sweden currently holds the presidency of the European Union (EU),
and Hjelm-Wallen is  responsible for coordinating the Swedish government's
role as the head of the Council of Ministers of the EU.

	Jenkins' letter states that the U.S. decision "puts the narrowest national
interest before global responsibility." He calls on "the European Union and
its member states [to] condemn the short-sighted approach of the U.S.
government, reaffirm their common commitment to the aims of the Kyoto
Treaty, maintain their own commitment to reducing emissions and take every
step possible to convince the U.S. government that it is in the long-term
interests of all, including the people of the U.S., to control emissions
before they do irreparable damage to the earth."

	Jenkins reminds Hjelm?Wallen that the subject of climate change was raised
in a meeting she held with representatives of Swedish and European churches
in November 2000. The participants had been encouraged, he says, by the firm
line taken on the issue of climate change by the Swedish government.

	The churches believed, Jenkins adds, that the Kyoto Treaty was "the best
practical hope of undertaking a shared and proportionate responsibility for
the effects of global warming."

	Asked in a telephone interview with ENI from his office in Brussels whether
the U.S. decision to reject the treaty, meant that the agreement was now
dead, Jenkins said, "I think it's too early to say if it's absolutely dead.
But obviously when a major player backs out, it is in doubt."

	He pointed out that the U.S. was the world's "biggest producer of
emissions. There is also extra responsibility on the industrialized world
which is also the wealthiest part of the world." He added that there was an
obvious difficulty if the U.S., the European Union or Japan did not ratify
the treaty. "That makes it difficult to sustain.

	"Our first concern as Europeans is to ensure that the European Union and
other European states maintain their own commitment and are not pushed off
course [by the U.S. decision]," Jenkins told ENI.

	According to the International Herald Tribune, the U.S. produces about 25
per cent of the world's greenhouse gases, even though the U.S. represents
only 4 per cent of the world's population. "This lopsided proportion has
prompted harsh commentary throughout Europe that the United States is
behaving like an arrogant superpower that places itself above the need to
make economic sacrifices for the benefit of the world's environment," the
IHT reported.

	An environment specialist for the World Council of Churches (WCC), which
like CEC is based in Geneva, also strongly criticized the U.S. decision.
"The rejection of the Kyoto Protocol by the Bush administration is a
betrayal of their responsibilities as global citizens," David Hallman, WCC
climate change program coordinator, said on March 30.

	Hallman, who is a member of the United Church of Canada, pointed out that
there was increasing evidence that vulnerable peoples, especially in poorer
countries, were already suffering from the impact of human?induced climate
change. He referred in particular to the past two years of floods in
Mozambique, rising sea levels threatening Pacific islands, and persistent
years of drought in Africa.

	He added: "If the U.S. walks away from the Kyoto Protocol, it just means
that another treaty with even more ambitious targets will have to be
negotiated in the future as evidence of the devastating impacts of climate
change mounts. We encourage all other countries to continue working towards
the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol regardless of the U.S. action."

	In New York on March 30, the National Council of Churches (NCC), the
leading ecumenical body in the U.S., released the text of a letter sent the
day before to President Bush by six religious leaders - Ismar Schlorsch,
chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and leading officials from
the NCC, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, the
Disciples of Christ and the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

	The letter points out that "projected impacts of global warming on the most
poor and vulnerable are ethically unacceptable" and adds that "domestic and
international action is urgently required. The United States has a moral
responsibility to lead the world's nations and to serve its people."

	The letter urges the US government to enact "a credible, binding program to
honor international commitments, successfully prevent destructive impacts on
humankind and habitat and embody equity."

	The religious leaders asked to meet President Bush in June.

	Kjell Larsson, Sweden's environment minister, said on March 31, during an
informal meeting of EU ministers for the environment, that the "Kyoto
Protocol is still alive" and that "no individual country has the right to
declare a multilateral agreement as dead."

	"The EU sticks to the target of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by 2002
at the latest," Larsson said. "To that end the EU and its member states have
started preparations for ratification and will actively continue its efforts
to combat climate change, for instance by developing the ECCP (the European
Climate Change Program)."

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