By Jennifer Gold

“GLOBAL WARMING will only be resolved through a global common response – and we need your help,” the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon told the head of the 349-member World Council of Churches (WCC), the Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia, in early  March.

In a wide-ranging discussion at the WCC’s headquarters in Geneva, Ban and Kobia laid down plans for a deeper partnership between the two bodies on climate change, and a number of other pressing global issues.

The WCC and its member churches have long worked to mobilize churches in efforts to stave off the worst consequences of climate change and ensure that the international community maintains its commitment beyond the Kyoto Protocol, which is due to expire in 2012.

“We would like to maintain a close partnership with the WCC,” said Ban. “You have high moral power, and what you are doing is based on your Christian beliefs.”

Kobia, meanwhile, affirmed the WCC’s commitment to working with the UN.

“Working on global warming is a matter of faith,” he said. “You can count on the WCC as a strong partner in acting together now, for the sake of humankind and the rest of creation.”

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In B.C., churches – along with the provincial government – have been calling for conservation, and collaboration, aimed at reducing carbon emissions in Canada.

“We support a transitional and progressive tax strategy, which forces heavy polluters and heavy consumers of fossil fuels to change their way of operating,” Kenneth Gray, chair of the environment committee of the Anglican Diocese of B.C., told The Vancouver Sun.

Additionally, A Rocha Canada, a Christian organization centred on the conservation of creation, has implemented ‘Footprints of Hope,’ a campaign happening at two conservation sites, in south Surrey and Manitoba.

A Rocha hopes that the footprints, as they call the two conservation sites, will give Christians guidance in how to live out their shared calling to care for creation.

In the midst of these steps taken by local Christians, the government of B.C. has announced plans for the implementation of a ‘revenue neutral carbon tax’ – which encourages the population to make more environmentally friendly choices, through the taxation of all fossil fuels.

“If B.C. is going to reach its goal of a 33 percent reduction in emissions by 2020, we are going to need powerful tools like a carbon tax to get the job done,” wrote Gray in a letter to Carole Taylor, B.C.’s finance minister.

The carbon tax will be implemented  July 1, subject to some further legislation.

– courtesy of Christian Post
– additional reporting by Emily Bruins

April 2008