#worldsummitofconscienceinternationalinterfaithgathering — Public Fediverse posts

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

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Additional reading:

+++

Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

+++

Further reading:

+++

Related articles

Rate this:

#Africa #AlbertTeveodjré #AlinaSaba #Amazon #Asia #Atheists #CarbonFootprint #CarbonPollution #CarbonEmitters #ChanKhong #Christians #ClimateChange #CongoBasin #DavidRosen #DominiqueLang #EcumenicalPatriarchBartholomew #FletcherHarper #FrederickOnaelShoo #GreenFaithInAction #HenrikMadsen #HumanSolidarity #JeanLucFauque #KhaledBentounes #LatinAmerica #LaurentFabius #MahamandeshwarSwamiAvdeshanandGiri #MaryRobinson #Materialism #Morality #NanditaKrishna #NathanKyamanywa #Poverty #SaileshRao #Selfishness #SheikhBentounes #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #SwamiAmritasvarupananda #TakayukiAshizu #UnitedNationsFrameworkConventionForClimateChange #Universe #VinyaAriyaratne #WorldSummitOfConscienceInternationalInterfaithGathering

#africa #albertteveodjre #alinasaba #amazon #asia #atheists

Marcus Ampe's Space @[email protected] · 2015-07-26 · 17:35 UTC

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Not only a political economic or ecological issue but the future of humanity that is at stake.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. We have a profound responsibility to protect and assist the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and to pass on to future generations a planet that is thriving and healthy.”

Continuation of ‘Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering’ #1 & 2

2015, July 21, Paris Why do I care Interreligious meeting

For people who believe in the Divine Creator God and honour and worship Him there is no question that we can keep ourselves at the side and do nothing to change the way the world is behaving at the moment. Jews, Non-trinitarian and trinitarian Christians, Muslims who do know their Holy Scriptures are aware that man has no excuse how he treats the creation of the Most High.

Perhaps people may be a little bit selfish, in a certain way,trying to make a nice living and trying to make a better place for themselves. And it can well be that “Selfishness” does not have to mean being shortsighted and harmful to others, but we all do have to know what ever we do for ourselves may also effect the life of others. Often we find Christians thinking they are the only ones who have an idea about God’s creation and respect it. Some of them, like several atheists may see that man in his position has to play an important role in that universe. They see the dangers of our way of living at the moment. They fear climate change and know we do have something to do against it.

But also people from other religions, like Hindus as Mahamandeshwar Swami Avdeshanand Giri, religious leader of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, India, said they saw climate change both as an existential threat and as an opportunity for renewal.In the afternoon reverend Takayuki Ashizu, Chief priest of Munakata Grand Shrine (Japan) was part of a discussion pannel with Jean-Luc Fauque, President of the Supreme Council of the European Confederation – the Scottish Rite, Rev. Fletcher Harper, Director of GreenFaith (USA), Sister Chan Khong, representative of the Thich Nhat Hanh Community (France), Fr. Dominique Lang, Chaplain of Pax Christi France, Author of the blog “Churches and Ecology”, and Mr Henrik Madsen, CEO DNV-GL, Norway.

Hindu leader Nandita Krishna, who has restored 50 sacred forests, feared that insatiable greed had gripped everyone on earth and this had led to climate change.

“We cannot replicate the environment or create it. Unless we see the divine in creation we will not understand our role and duty as humans,”

she said.

Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, Bishop of Bunyoro Kitara (Uganda) was in charge of the Keynote addresses of the third plenary.

Bringing the day into its discussion between panelists Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, Director of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (Sri Lanka), M. Swami Amritasvarupananda, Amma’s representative (India), Sheikh Khaled Bentounes, Spiritual Guide of the Alawiyya Sufi brotherhood (Algeria), M Sailesh Rao, Director of “Climat Healers Initiative for Transformations” (USA), Ms Alina Saba, Environnemental activist (Nepal) and Bishop Frederick Onael Shoo, Founder of the Lutheran Movement for the Environment in Africa (Tanzania).

Guide spirituel de la Tariqa Alâwiyya, Cheikh Khaled Bentounes

Sheikh Bentounes, leader of the Sufi brotherhood Alawiya, urged mankind to carry “a hope of a future”.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of Inter Religious Affairs “of the American Jewish Committee said:

“Climate change takes place where there is unbridled avarice. It is a symptom of the disease and cry for us to respond. It is the opportunity for humans to rediscover the higher values than materialism and indulgence.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, despaired at humanity’s blindness, but quoted writer Fyodor Dostoevsky saying that

“beauty would save the earth”.

For him as for many others it is clear that scientists and theologians agree that humanity depends on nature. Therefore he made an urgent appeal:

We must accept the moral imperative for action. Religion must also be involved in the crucial question of climate change.”

Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002, as President of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, found it truly inspiring to see leaders at this meeting in Paris from so many faiths and secular traditions, and to hear of their impressive commitment to the simple yet deeply profound message: “why I care”.

She said

Our lived experiences, our religious beliefs and our cultural backgrounds may be diverse – but you are showing that great traditions have a shared sense of morality and fairness, and a collective recognition of the need to act on climate change to protect people and our common home.

For her this is an example of human solidarity at work.

She outlined why she believes that it is this human solidarity that is the key to igniting
global will to act on the climate.

The idea of human solidarity is sometimes misunderstood. Some people say that it is a well-meaning moral guideline, but it does not help political leaders to conduct negotiations and reach complicated legal agreements – including those that will be needed to reach a climate agreement in Paris later this year.

and said why she disagreed with this view.

Because if we look past all the complex science, economics, legal arguments and political negotiations which are necessary parts of the process towards a climate agreement, we can see that acting on climate change can be summarised very simply:
we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we act to help each other.
Passing those two tests is the challenge of our generation, and will decide whether we leave our children and grandchildren a safe world of hope and fairness, or a world where climate change is causing misery and stress.

She spend a lot of time listening to people all around the world, and she thinks that a lot more people care about fairness and our collective future than we sometimes realise.

All across the world, people are witnessing the damage to lives and livelihoods caused by climate change, and are standing up to say that it is time to act.

At the meeting those present have shown the deep level of thinking that underpins why
different people care in different ways about climate action. So she strongly believes that
the first component of igniting climate action is already well underway,

and today is a very important milestone in that process.
So perhaps the next challenge is to move from understanding why we must act on climate, to understanding how we collectively overcome the diverse obstacles to action faced by different people in different places around the world.

We have to realise that peoples from throughout the developing world have their role to play.

There is no solution to climate change without the developing world. This is because most of the energy supply, buildings and transport infrastructure that has yet to be built will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of the supply of nutritious food to feed an ever more populous world will come from the same places. And the world’s major forests –
including the Amazon, Congo Basin and the forests of South East Asia – are in exactly the same regions. Energy, transportation, forests, agriculture – these will either be managed in a way that over-uses fossil fuels, locks in greenhouse emissions and damages our world, or in a way that protects people and preserves our natural home.
But energy, transportation and agricultural systems are not abstract concepts.
They are fundamentally about people, and their legitimate desire for development. And despite all the economic models and theoretical blueprints, we still live in a world where
too many people are prevented from making a low carbon development choice. We have to change the reality where poverty means that up to three billion people, mainly women, still cook using dangerous and dirty energy sources – the black carbon that comes from this use of coal, charcoal and wood makes an enormous contribution to climate change
as well as to deaths and ill-health.

This is the reason why forest communities must be able to work with others to protect their forests, which was also stated earlier in the afternoon. She also wanted to ad that farmers must be free to find ways to move to more sustainable practices –

together deforestation and agricultural practices are about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Indigenous peoples must be able to continue their traditional practices that help to preserve the innumerable benefits provided by our natural world.
The hundreds of millions of people living in slums across the world need access to affordable, sustainable food and energy – and to be consulted in the world-wide
drive for sustainable cities because they will form the majority of the population that will live in them.

For her the whole world needs the people of the developing world to be able to use their innovation and their energy to create a new model of low carbon and equitable development.

Her foundation, which she set up to promote climate justice, summarises this new development model as zero carbon, zero poverty –

and we are certain that we can achieve these dual outcomes with the right kind of international co-operation.

she said.

Though she is also aware that this includes the need for international financing for climate action – not as aid, but rather as part of the collective global recognition that while today’s rich countries built their prosperity from fossil fuels and unsustainable land use, leaders from the developing world are trying to find a way to a more sustainable model of developing without emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change provides the platform for advancing this international co-operation – and Minister Fabius and the French Government, as hosts of the Paris climate meeting, have been impressive in their recognition of the need for a mature discussion about the approach to international climate finance.

She ended her speech by reminding us that

we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we help each other.
But this possibility will only be realized if concerned citizens, organisations and businesses from across the world build informed, respectful partnerships with those who are willing to lead in the developing world.

She is finds it positive that there are many other individuals and organisations who are already thinking deeply about individual pieces of the climate puzzle. Women’s groups. Youth groups. Progressive businesses. Trades Unions. Grass-roots activists. In all countries, rich and poor.

She strongly urged those present to build from this meeting and reach out to all these groups.

If you do, your work today can be the spark that ignites an unprecedented wave of human
solidarity in the cause of climate action. You can gather into a “big tent” those who represent, and understand the lives of, billions of people.
Together, this movement can truly change the world.

she said.

On 1st January, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals become the new development agenda for our world. Many believe we should mark that day with special prayer and
reflection to bring us together as a human family.
Together, we can show the world that human solidarity is not only the domain of religions and human rights activists. Rather it is the golden key that unlocks the collective power of billions of people. Those people can act together to build a more resilient world, stabilise our climate, and create an unprecedented attack on global poverty and inequality.

86-year-old Benin writer and politician Albert Teveodjré represented the views of secular thinkers.

“Nature was loaned to us as a place to live. I witness a world of profit at all costs which will ruin the environment and devastate everything. I am very worried. I think I will leave the world with many worries.”

Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, COP21 President, delivered the closing speech at the Summit of Conscience at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
Following the informal ministerial conferences on July 20 and 21, which mobilized the international community at the political level, this event will provide an opportunity to address civil society and, beyond that, the public, in order to ensure the success of COP21.

The Summit has seen the launch of the “Green Faith in Action” project, a global initiative stemming from a coalition of partners with the objective of rendering pilgrimage destinations of all religious and spiritual persuasions, low-carbon cities resilient to climate disruptions. Three hundred million pilgrims travel to these cities each year.

As I wrote already in an other posting we do have to go “Forward ever, backwards never!” and should not only look for positive constructive dreams, which lead us further to the right path, but should also get more people involved in trying to work and motivate others to work at a balance in our position in creation and to find a good way to live in respect to nature. Let us for some moment think also that “Less… is still enough” and that we can, if we are inventive enough, find ways to still have more than we need, living in Luxury, without damaging nature around us. sometimes it would not be bad to take on ‘A bird’s eye and reflecting from within’. Let us look at what is going on, how we can stop the bad evolution, twist the curve of the negative way and come to a good healthy path for all creatures in the world.

*

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Paris in December this year. An effective and equitable international agreement will be critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate impacts. France, as the host and chair of COP21, is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement at COP 21.

ending the day with the speakers handing over the baton to the children

+

Preceding articles:

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

++

Additional reading:

+++

Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

+++

Further reading:

+++

Related articles

Rate this:

#Africa #AlbertTeveodjré #AlinaSaba #Amazon #Asia #Atheists #CarbonFootprint #CarbonPollution #CarbonEmitters #ChanKhong #Christians #ClimateChange #CongoBasin #DavidRosen #DominiqueLang #EcumenicalPatriarchBartholomew #FletcherHarper #FrederickOnaelShoo #GreenFaithInAction #HenrikMadsen #HumanSolidarity #JeanLucFauque #KhaledBentounes #LatinAmerica #LaurentFabius #MahamandeshwarSwamiAvdeshanandGiri #MaryRobinson #Materialism #Morality #NanditaKrishna #NathanKyamanywa #Poverty #SaileshRao #Selfishness #SheikhBentounes #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #SwamiAmritasvarupananda #TakayukiAshizu #UnitedNationsFrameworkConventionForClimateChange #Universe #VinyaAriyaratne #WorldSummitOfConscienceInternationalInterfaithGathering

#africa #albertteveodjre #alinasaba #amazon #asia #atheists

Marcus Ampe's Space @[email protected] · 2015-07-26 · 17:35 UTC

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Not only a political economic or ecological issue but the future of humanity that is at stake.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. We have a profound responsibility to protect and assist the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and to pass on to future generations a planet that is thriving and healthy.”

Continuation of ‘Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering’ #1 & 2

2015, July 21, Paris Why do I care Interreligious meeting

For people who believe in the Divine Creator God and honour and worship Him there is no question that we can keep ourselves at the side and do nothing to change the way the world is behaving at the moment. Jews, Non-trinitarian and trinitarian Christians, Muslims who do know their Holy Scriptures are aware that man has no excuse how he treats the creation of the Most High.

Perhaps people may be a little bit selfish, in a certain way,trying to make a nice living and trying to make a better place for themselves. And it can well be that “Selfishness” does not have to mean being shortsighted and harmful to others, but we all do have to know what ever we do for ourselves may also effect the life of others. Often we find Christians thinking they are the only ones who have an idea about God’s creation and respect it. Some of them, like several atheists may see that man in his position has to play an important role in that universe. They see the dangers of our way of living at the moment. They fear climate change and know we do have something to do against it.

But also people from other religions, like Hindus as Mahamandeshwar Swami Avdeshanand Giri, religious leader of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, India, said they saw climate change both as an existential threat and as an opportunity for renewal.In the afternoon reverend Takayuki Ashizu, Chief priest of Munakata Grand Shrine (Japan) was part of a discussion pannel with Jean-Luc Fauque, President of the Supreme Council of the European Confederation – the Scottish Rite, Rev. Fletcher Harper, Director of GreenFaith (USA), Sister Chan Khong, representative of the Thich Nhat Hanh Community (France), Fr. Dominique Lang, Chaplain of Pax Christi France, Author of the blog “Churches and Ecology”, and Mr Henrik Madsen, CEO DNV-GL, Norway.

Hindu leader Nandita Krishna, who has restored 50 sacred forests, feared that insatiable greed had gripped everyone on earth and this had led to climate change.

“We cannot replicate the environment or create it. Unless we see the divine in creation we will not understand our role and duty as humans,”

she said.

Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, Bishop of Bunyoro Kitara (Uganda) was in charge of the Keynote addresses of the third plenary.

Bringing the day into its discussion between panelists Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, Director of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (Sri Lanka), M. Swami Amritasvarupananda, Amma’s representative (India), Sheikh Khaled Bentounes, Spiritual Guide of the Alawiyya Sufi brotherhood (Algeria), M Sailesh Rao, Director of “Climat Healers Initiative for Transformations” (USA), Ms Alina Saba, Environnemental activist (Nepal) and Bishop Frederick Onael Shoo, Founder of the Lutheran Movement for the Environment in Africa (Tanzania).

Guide spirituel de la Tariqa Alâwiyya, Cheikh Khaled Bentounes

Sheikh Bentounes, leader of the Sufi brotherhood Alawiya, urged mankind to carry “a hope of a future”.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of Inter Religious Affairs “of the American Jewish Committee said:

“Climate change takes place where there is unbridled avarice. It is a symptom of the disease and cry for us to respond. It is the opportunity for humans to rediscover the higher values than materialism and indulgence.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, despaired at humanity’s blindness, but quoted writer Fyodor Dostoevsky saying that

“beauty would save the earth”.

For him as for many others it is clear that scientists and theologians agree that humanity depends on nature. Therefore he made an urgent appeal:

We must accept the moral imperative for action. Religion must also be involved in the crucial question of climate change.”

Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002, as President of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, found it truly inspiring to see leaders at this meeting in Paris from so many faiths and secular traditions, and to hear of their impressive commitment to the simple yet deeply profound message: “why I care”.

She said

Our lived experiences, our religious beliefs and our cultural backgrounds may be diverse – but you are showing that great traditions have a shared sense of morality and fairness, and a collective recognition of the need to act on climate change to protect people and our common home.

For her this is an example of human solidarity at work.

She outlined why she believes that it is this human solidarity that is the key to igniting
global will to act on the climate.

The idea of human solidarity is sometimes misunderstood. Some people say that it is a well-meaning moral guideline, but it does not help political leaders to conduct negotiations and reach complicated legal agreements – including those that will be needed to reach a climate agreement in Paris later this year.

and said why she disagreed with this view.

Because if we look past all the complex science, economics, legal arguments and political negotiations which are necessary parts of the process towards a climate agreement, we can see that acting on climate change can be summarised very simply:
we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we act to help each other.
Passing those two tests is the challenge of our generation, and will decide whether we leave our children and grandchildren a safe world of hope and fairness, or a world where climate change is causing misery and stress.

She spend a lot of time listening to people all around the world, and she thinks that a lot more people care about fairness and our collective future than we sometimes realise.

All across the world, people are witnessing the damage to lives and livelihoods caused by climate change, and are standing up to say that it is time to act.

At the meeting those present have shown the deep level of thinking that underpins why
different people care in different ways about climate action. So she strongly believes that
the first component of igniting climate action is already well underway,

and today is a very important milestone in that process.
So perhaps the next challenge is to move from understanding why we must act on climate, to understanding how we collectively overcome the diverse obstacles to action faced by different people in different places around the world.

We have to realise that peoples from throughout the developing world have their role to play.

There is no solution to climate change without the developing world. This is because most of the energy supply, buildings and transport infrastructure that has yet to be built will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of the supply of nutritious food to feed an ever more populous world will come from the same places. And the world’s major forests –
including the Amazon, Congo Basin and the forests of South East Asia – are in exactly the same regions. Energy, transportation, forests, agriculture – these will either be managed in a way that over-uses fossil fuels, locks in greenhouse emissions and damages our world, or in a way that protects people and preserves our natural home.
But energy, transportation and agricultural systems are not abstract concepts.
They are fundamentally about people, and their legitimate desire for development. And despite all the economic models and theoretical blueprints, we still live in a world where
too many people are prevented from making a low carbon development choice. We have to change the reality where poverty means that up to three billion people, mainly women, still cook using dangerous and dirty energy sources – the black carbon that comes from this use of coal, charcoal and wood makes an enormous contribution to climate change
as well as to deaths and ill-health.

This is the reason why forest communities must be able to work with others to protect their forests, which was also stated earlier in the afternoon. She also wanted to ad that farmers must be free to find ways to move to more sustainable practices –

together deforestation and agricultural practices are about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Indigenous peoples must be able to continue their traditional practices that help to preserve the innumerable benefits provided by our natural world.
The hundreds of millions of people living in slums across the world need access to affordable, sustainable food and energy – and to be consulted in the world-wide
drive for sustainable cities because they will form the majority of the population that will live in them.

For her the whole world needs the people of the developing world to be able to use their innovation and their energy to create a new model of low carbon and equitable development.

Her foundation, which she set up to promote climate justice, summarises this new development model as zero carbon, zero poverty –

and we are certain that we can achieve these dual outcomes with the right kind of international co-operation.

she said.

Though she is also aware that this includes the need for international financing for climate action – not as aid, but rather as part of the collective global recognition that while today’s rich countries built their prosperity from fossil fuels and unsustainable land use, leaders from the developing world are trying to find a way to a more sustainable model of developing without emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change provides the platform for advancing this international co-operation – and Minister Fabius and the French Government, as hosts of the Paris climate meeting, have been impressive in their recognition of the need for a mature discussion about the approach to international climate finance.

She ended her speech by reminding us that

we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we help each other.
But this possibility will only be realized if concerned citizens, organisations and businesses from across the world build informed, respectful partnerships with those who are willing to lead in the developing world.

She is finds it positive that there are many other individuals and organisations who are already thinking deeply about individual pieces of the climate puzzle. Women’s groups. Youth groups. Progressive businesses. Trades Unions. Grass-roots activists. In all countries, rich and poor.

She strongly urged those present to build from this meeting and reach out to all these groups.

If you do, your work today can be the spark that ignites an unprecedented wave of human
solidarity in the cause of climate action. You can gather into a “big tent” those who represent, and understand the lives of, billions of people.
Together, this movement can truly change the world.

she said.

On 1st January, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals become the new development agenda for our world. Many believe we should mark that day with special prayer and
reflection to bring us together as a human family.
Together, we can show the world that human solidarity is not only the domain of religions and human rights activists. Rather it is the golden key that unlocks the collective power of billions of people. Those people can act together to build a more resilient world, stabilise our climate, and create an unprecedented attack on global poverty and inequality.

86-year-old Benin writer and politician Albert Teveodjré represented the views of secular thinkers.

“Nature was loaned to us as a place to live. I witness a world of profit at all costs which will ruin the environment and devastate everything. I am very worried. I think I will leave the world with many worries.”

Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, COP21 President, delivered the closing speech at the Summit of Conscience at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
Following the informal ministerial conferences on July 20 and 21, which mobilized the international community at the political level, this event will provide an opportunity to address civil society and, beyond that, the public, in order to ensure the success of COP21.

The Summit has seen the launch of the “Green Faith in Action” project, a global initiative stemming from a coalition of partners with the objective of rendering pilgrimage destinations of all religious and spiritual persuasions, low-carbon cities resilient to climate disruptions. Three hundred million pilgrims travel to these cities each year.

As I wrote already in an other posting we do have to go “Forward ever, backwards never!” and should not only look for positive constructive dreams, which lead us further to the right path, but should also get more people involved in trying to work and motivate others to work at a balance in our position in creation and to find a good way to live in respect to nature. Let us for some moment think also that “Less… is still enough” and that we can, if we are inventive enough, find ways to still have more than we need, living in Luxury, without damaging nature around us. sometimes it would not be bad to take on ‘A bird’s eye and reflecting from within’. Let us look at what is going on, how we can stop the bad evolution, twist the curve of the negative way and come to a good healthy path for all creatures in the world.

*

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Paris in December this year. An effective and equitable international agreement will be critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate impacts. France, as the host and chair of COP21, is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement at COP 21.

ending the day with the speakers handing over the baton to the children

+

Preceding articles:

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

++

Additional reading:

+++

Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

+++

Further reading:

+++

Related articles

Rate this:

#Africa #AlbertTeveodjré #AlinaSaba #Amazon #Asia #Atheists #CarbonFootprint #CarbonPollution #CarbonEmitters #ChanKhong #Christians #ClimateChange #CongoBasin #DavidRosen #DominiqueLang #EcumenicalPatriarchBartholomew #FletcherHarper #FrederickOnaelShoo #GreenFaithInAction #HenrikMadsen #HumanSolidarity #JeanLucFauque #KhaledBentounes #LatinAmerica #LaurentFabius #MahamandeshwarSwamiAvdeshanandGiri #MaryRobinson #Materialism #Morality #NanditaKrishna #NathanKyamanywa #Poverty #SaileshRao #Selfishness #SheikhBentounes #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #SwamiAmritasvarupananda #TakayukiAshizu #UnitedNationsFrameworkConventionForClimateChange #Universe #VinyaAriyaratne #WorldSummitOfConscienceInternationalInterfaithGathering

#africa #albertteveodjre #alinasaba #amazon #asia #atheists

Marcus Ampe's Space @[email protected] · 2015-07-26 · 17:35 UTC

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Not only a political economic or ecological issue but the future of humanity that is at stake.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. We have a profound responsibility to protect and assist the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and to pass on to future generations a planet that is thriving and healthy.”

Continuation of ‘Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering’ #1 & 2

2015, July 21, Paris Why do I care Interreligious meeting

For people who believe in the Divine Creator God and honour and worship Him there is no question that we can keep ourselves at the side and do nothing to change the way the world is behaving at the moment. Jews, Non-trinitarian and trinitarian Christians, Muslims who do know their Holy Scriptures are aware that man has no excuse how he treats the creation of the Most High.

Perhaps people may be a little bit selfish, in a certain way,trying to make a nice living and trying to make a better place for themselves. And it can well be that “Selfishness” does not have to mean being shortsighted and harmful to others, but we all do have to know what ever we do for ourselves may also effect the life of others. Often we find Christians thinking they are the only ones who have an idea about God’s creation and respect it. Some of them, like several atheists may see that man in his position has to play an important role in that universe. They see the dangers of our way of living at the moment. They fear climate change and know we do have something to do against it.

But also people from other religions, like Hindus as Mahamandeshwar Swami Avdeshanand Giri, religious leader of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, India, said they saw climate change both as an existential threat and as an opportunity for renewal.In the afternoon reverend Takayuki Ashizu, Chief priest of Munakata Grand Shrine (Japan) was part of a discussion pannel with Jean-Luc Fauque, President of the Supreme Council of the European Confederation – the Scottish Rite, Rev. Fletcher Harper, Director of GreenFaith (USA), Sister Chan Khong, representative of the Thich Nhat Hanh Community (France), Fr. Dominique Lang, Chaplain of Pax Christi France, Author of the blog “Churches and Ecology”, and Mr Henrik Madsen, CEO DNV-GL, Norway.

Hindu leader Nandita Krishna, who has restored 50 sacred forests, feared that insatiable greed had gripped everyone on earth and this had led to climate change.

“We cannot replicate the environment or create it. Unless we see the divine in creation we will not understand our role and duty as humans,”

she said.

Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, Bishop of Bunyoro Kitara (Uganda) was in charge of the Keynote addresses of the third plenary.

Bringing the day into its discussion between panelists Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, Director of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (Sri Lanka), M. Swami Amritasvarupananda, Amma’s representative (India), Sheikh Khaled Bentounes, Spiritual Guide of the Alawiyya Sufi brotherhood (Algeria), M Sailesh Rao, Director of “Climat Healers Initiative for Transformations” (USA), Ms Alina Saba, Environnemental activist (Nepal) and Bishop Frederick Onael Shoo, Founder of the Lutheran Movement for the Environment in Africa (Tanzania).

Guide spirituel de la Tariqa Alâwiyya, Cheikh Khaled Bentounes

Sheikh Bentounes, leader of the Sufi brotherhood Alawiya, urged mankind to carry “a hope of a future”.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of Inter Religious Affairs “of the American Jewish Committee said:

“Climate change takes place where there is unbridled avarice. It is a symptom of the disease and cry for us to respond. It is the opportunity for humans to rediscover the higher values than materialism and indulgence.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, despaired at humanity’s blindness, but quoted writer Fyodor Dostoevsky saying that

“beauty would save the earth”.

For him as for many others it is clear that scientists and theologians agree that humanity depends on nature. Therefore he made an urgent appeal:

We must accept the moral imperative for action. Religion must also be involved in the crucial question of climate change.”

Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002, as President of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, found it truly inspiring to see leaders at this meeting in Paris from so many faiths and secular traditions, and to hear of their impressive commitment to the simple yet deeply profound message: “why I care”.

She said

Our lived experiences, our religious beliefs and our cultural backgrounds may be diverse – but you are showing that great traditions have a shared sense of morality and fairness, and a collective recognition of the need to act on climate change to protect people and our common home.

For her this is an example of human solidarity at work.

She outlined why she believes that it is this human solidarity that is the key to igniting
global will to act on the climate.

The idea of human solidarity is sometimes misunderstood. Some people say that it is a well-meaning moral guideline, but it does not help political leaders to conduct negotiations and reach complicated legal agreements – including those that will be needed to reach a climate agreement in Paris later this year.

and said why she disagreed with this view.

Because if we look past all the complex science, economics, legal arguments and political negotiations which are necessary parts of the process towards a climate agreement, we can see that acting on climate change can be summarised very simply:
we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we act to help each other.
Passing those two tests is the challenge of our generation, and will decide whether we leave our children and grandchildren a safe world of hope and fairness, or a world where climate change is causing misery and stress.

She spend a lot of time listening to people all around the world, and she thinks that a lot more people care about fairness and our collective future than we sometimes realise.

All across the world, people are witnessing the damage to lives and livelihoods caused by climate change, and are standing up to say that it is time to act.

At the meeting those present have shown the deep level of thinking that underpins why
different people care in different ways about climate action. So she strongly believes that
the first component of igniting climate action is already well underway,

and today is a very important milestone in that process.
So perhaps the next challenge is to move from understanding why we must act on climate, to understanding how we collectively overcome the diverse obstacles to action faced by different people in different places around the world.

We have to realise that peoples from throughout the developing world have their role to play.

There is no solution to climate change without the developing world. This is because most of the energy supply, buildings and transport infrastructure that has yet to be built will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of the supply of nutritious food to feed an ever more populous world will come from the same places. And the world’s major forests –
including the Amazon, Congo Basin and the forests of South East Asia – are in exactly the same regions. Energy, transportation, forests, agriculture – these will either be managed in a way that over-uses fossil fuels, locks in greenhouse emissions and damages our world, or in a way that protects people and preserves our natural home.
But energy, transportation and agricultural systems are not abstract concepts.
They are fundamentally about people, and their legitimate desire for development. And despite all the economic models and theoretical blueprints, we still live in a world where
too many people are prevented from making a low carbon development choice. We have to change the reality where poverty means that up to three billion people, mainly women, still cook using dangerous and dirty energy sources – the black carbon that comes from this use of coal, charcoal and wood makes an enormous contribution to climate change
as well as to deaths and ill-health.

This is the reason why forest communities must be able to work with others to protect their forests, which was also stated earlier in the afternoon. She also wanted to ad that farmers must be free to find ways to move to more sustainable practices –

together deforestation and agricultural practices are about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Indigenous peoples must be able to continue their traditional practices that help to preserve the innumerable benefits provided by our natural world.
The hundreds of millions of people living in slums across the world need access to affordable, sustainable food and energy – and to be consulted in the world-wide
drive for sustainable cities because they will form the majority of the population that will live in them.

For her the whole world needs the people of the developing world to be able to use their innovation and their energy to create a new model of low carbon and equitable development.

Her foundation, which she set up to promote climate justice, summarises this new development model as zero carbon, zero poverty –

and we are certain that we can achieve these dual outcomes with the right kind of international co-operation.

she said.

Though she is also aware that this includes the need for international financing for climate action – not as aid, but rather as part of the collective global recognition that while today’s rich countries built their prosperity from fossil fuels and unsustainable land use, leaders from the developing world are trying to find a way to a more sustainable model of developing without emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change provides the platform for advancing this international co-operation – and Minister Fabius and the French Government, as hosts of the Paris climate meeting, have been impressive in their recognition of the need for a mature discussion about the approach to international climate finance.

She ended her speech by reminding us that

we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we help each other.
But this possibility will only be realized if concerned citizens, organisations and businesses from across the world build informed, respectful partnerships with those who are willing to lead in the developing world.

She is finds it positive that there are many other individuals and organisations who are already thinking deeply about individual pieces of the climate puzzle. Women’s groups. Youth groups. Progressive businesses. Trades Unions. Grass-roots activists. In all countries, rich and poor.

She strongly urged those present to build from this meeting and reach out to all these groups.

If you do, your work today can be the spark that ignites an unprecedented wave of human
solidarity in the cause of climate action. You can gather into a “big tent” those who represent, and understand the lives of, billions of people.
Together, this movement can truly change the world.

she said.

On 1st January, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals become the new development agenda for our world. Many believe we should mark that day with special prayer and
reflection to bring us together as a human family.
Together, we can show the world that human solidarity is not only the domain of religions and human rights activists. Rather it is the golden key that unlocks the collective power of billions of people. Those people can act together to build a more resilient world, stabilise our climate, and create an unprecedented attack on global poverty and inequality.

86-year-old Benin writer and politician Albert Teveodjré represented the views of secular thinkers.

“Nature was loaned to us as a place to live. I witness a world of profit at all costs which will ruin the environment and devastate everything. I am very worried. I think I will leave the world with many worries.”

Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, COP21 President, delivered the closing speech at the Summit of Conscience at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
Following the informal ministerial conferences on July 20 and 21, which mobilized the international community at the political level, this event will provide an opportunity to address civil society and, beyond that, the public, in order to ensure the success of COP21.

The Summit has seen the launch of the “Green Faith in Action” project, a global initiative stemming from a coalition of partners with the objective of rendering pilgrimage destinations of all religious and spiritual persuasions, low-carbon cities resilient to climate disruptions. Three hundred million pilgrims travel to these cities each year.

As I wrote already in an other posting we do have to go “Forward ever, backwards never!” and should not only look for positive constructive dreams, which lead us further to the right path, but should also get more people involved in trying to work and motivate others to work at a balance in our position in creation and to find a good way to live in respect to nature. Let us for some moment think also that “Less… is still enough” and that we can, if we are inventive enough, find ways to still have more than we need, living in Luxury, without damaging nature around us. sometimes it would not be bad to take on ‘A bird’s eye and reflecting from within’. Let us look at what is going on, how we can stop the bad evolution, twist the curve of the negative way and come to a good healthy path for all creatures in the world.

*

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Paris in December this year. An effective and equitable international agreement will be critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate impacts. France, as the host and chair of COP21, is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement at COP 21.

ending the day with the speakers handing over the baton to the children

+

Preceding articles:

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

++

Additional reading:

+++

Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

+++

Further reading:

+++

Related articles

Rate this:

#Africa #AlbertTeveodjré #AlinaSaba #Amazon #Asia #Atheists #CarbonFootprint #CarbonPollution #CarbonEmitters #ChanKhong #Christians #ClimateChange #CongoBasin #DavidRosen #DominiqueLang #EcumenicalPatriarchBartholomew #FletcherHarper #FrederickOnaelShoo #GreenFaithInAction #HenrikMadsen #HumanSolidarity #JeanLucFauque #KhaledBentounes #LatinAmerica #LaurentFabius #MahamandeshwarSwamiAvdeshanandGiri #MaryRobinson #Materialism #Morality #NanditaKrishna #NathanKyamanywa #Poverty #SaileshRao #Selfishness #SheikhBentounes #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #SwamiAmritasvarupananda #TakayukiAshizu #UnitedNationsFrameworkConventionForClimateChange #Universe #VinyaAriyaratne #WorldSummitOfConscienceInternationalInterfaithGathering

#worldsummitofconscienceinternationalinterfaithgathering #vinyaariyaratne #universe #unitednationsframeworkconventionforclimatechange #takayukiashizu #swamiamritasvarupananda

Marcus Ampe's Space @[email protected] · 2015-07-26 · 17:35 UTC

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Not only a political economic or ecological issue but the future of humanity that is at stake.

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. It affects us all, but it does not affect us all equally. We have a profound responsibility to protect and assist the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people and to pass on to future generations a planet that is thriving and healthy.”

Continuation of ‘Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering’ #1 & 2

2015, July 21, Paris Why do I care Interreligious meeting

For people who believe in the Divine Creator God and honour and worship Him there is no question that we can keep ourselves at the side and do nothing to change the way the world is behaving at the moment. Jews, Non-trinitarian and trinitarian Christians, Muslims who do know their Holy Scriptures are aware that man has no excuse how he treats the creation of the Most High.

Perhaps people may be a little bit selfish, in a certain way,trying to make a nice living and trying to make a better place for themselves. And it can well be that “Selfishness” does not have to mean being shortsighted and harmful to others, but we all do have to know what ever we do for ourselves may also effect the life of others. Often we find Christians thinking they are the only ones who have an idea about God’s creation and respect it. Some of them, like several atheists may see that man in his position has to play an important role in that universe. They see the dangers of our way of living at the moment. They fear climate change and know we do have something to do against it.

But also people from other religions, like Hindus as Mahamandeshwar Swami Avdeshanand Giri, religious leader of the Hindu Dharma Acharya Sabha, India, said they saw climate change both as an existential threat and as an opportunity for renewal.In the afternoon reverend Takayuki Ashizu, Chief priest of Munakata Grand Shrine (Japan) was part of a discussion pannel with Jean-Luc Fauque, President of the Supreme Council of the European Confederation – the Scottish Rite, Rev. Fletcher Harper, Director of GreenFaith (USA), Sister Chan Khong, representative of the Thich Nhat Hanh Community (France), Fr. Dominique Lang, Chaplain of Pax Christi France, Author of the blog “Churches and Ecology”, and Mr Henrik Madsen, CEO DNV-GL, Norway.

Hindu leader Nandita Krishna, who has restored 50 sacred forests, feared that insatiable greed had gripped everyone on earth and this had led to climate change.

“We cannot replicate the environment or create it. Unless we see the divine in creation we will not understand our role and duty as humans,”

she said.

Bishop Nathan Kyamanywa, Bishop of Bunyoro Kitara (Uganda) was in charge of the Keynote addresses of the third plenary.

Bringing the day into its discussion between panelists Dr Vinya Ariyaratne, Director of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement (Sri Lanka), M. Swami Amritasvarupananda, Amma’s representative (India), Sheikh Khaled Bentounes, Spiritual Guide of the Alawiyya Sufi brotherhood (Algeria), M Sailesh Rao, Director of “Climat Healers Initiative for Transformations” (USA), Ms Alina Saba, Environnemental activist (Nepal) and Bishop Frederick Onael Shoo, Founder of the Lutheran Movement for the Environment in Africa (Tanzania).

Guide spirituel de la Tariqa Alâwiyya, Cheikh Khaled Bentounes

Sheikh Bentounes, leader of the Sufi brotherhood Alawiya, urged mankind to carry “a hope of a future”.

Rabbi David Rosen, international director of Inter Religious Affairs “of the American Jewish Committee said:

“Climate change takes place where there is unbridled avarice. It is a symptom of the disease and cry for us to respond. It is the opportunity for humans to rediscover the higher values than materialism and indulgence.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians, despaired at humanity’s blindness, but quoted writer Fyodor Dostoevsky saying that

“beauty would save the earth”.

For him as for many others it is clear that scientists and theologians agree that humanity depends on nature. Therefore he made an urgent appeal:

We must accept the moral imperative for action. Religion must also be involved in the crucial question of climate change.”

Mary Robinson, who served as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002, as President of the Mary Robinson Foundation- Climate Justice, found it truly inspiring to see leaders at this meeting in Paris from so many faiths and secular traditions, and to hear of their impressive commitment to the simple yet deeply profound message: “why I care”.

She said

Our lived experiences, our religious beliefs and our cultural backgrounds may be diverse – but you are showing that great traditions have a shared sense of morality and fairness, and a collective recognition of the need to act on climate change to protect people and our common home.

For her this is an example of human solidarity at work.

She outlined why she believes that it is this human solidarity that is the key to igniting
global will to act on the climate.

The idea of human solidarity is sometimes misunderstood. Some people say that it is a well-meaning moral guideline, but it does not help political leaders to conduct negotiations and reach complicated legal agreements – including those that will be needed to reach a climate agreement in Paris later this year.

and said why she disagreed with this view.

Because if we look past all the complex science, economics, legal arguments and political negotiations which are necessary parts of the process towards a climate agreement, we can see that acting on climate change can be summarised very simply:
we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we act to help each other.
Passing those two tests is the challenge of our generation, and will decide whether we leave our children and grandchildren a safe world of hope and fairness, or a world where climate change is causing misery and stress.

She spend a lot of time listening to people all around the world, and she thinks that a lot more people care about fairness and our collective future than we sometimes realise.

All across the world, people are witnessing the damage to lives and livelihoods caused by climate change, and are standing up to say that it is time to act.

At the meeting those present have shown the deep level of thinking that underpins why
different people care in different ways about climate action. So she strongly believes that
the first component of igniting climate action is already well underway,

and today is a very important milestone in that process.
So perhaps the next challenge is to move from understanding why we must act on climate, to understanding how we collectively overcome the diverse obstacles to action faced by different people in different places around the world.

We have to realise that peoples from throughout the developing world have their role to play.

There is no solution to climate change without the developing world. This is because most of the energy supply, buildings and transport infrastructure that has yet to be built will be in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Most of the supply of nutritious food to feed an ever more populous world will come from the same places. And the world’s major forests –
including the Amazon, Congo Basin and the forests of South East Asia – are in exactly the same regions. Energy, transportation, forests, agriculture – these will either be managed in a way that over-uses fossil fuels, locks in greenhouse emissions and damages our world, or in a way that protects people and preserves our natural home.
But energy, transportation and agricultural systems are not abstract concepts.
They are fundamentally about people, and their legitimate desire for development. And despite all the economic models and theoretical blueprints, we still live in a world where
too many people are prevented from making a low carbon development choice. We have to change the reality where poverty means that up to three billion people, mainly women, still cook using dangerous and dirty energy sources – the black carbon that comes from this use of coal, charcoal and wood makes an enormous contribution to climate change
as well as to deaths and ill-health.

This is the reason why forest communities must be able to work with others to protect their forests, which was also stated earlier in the afternoon. She also wanted to ad that farmers must be free to find ways to move to more sustainable practices –

together deforestation and agricultural practices are about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.
Indigenous peoples must be able to continue their traditional practices that help to preserve the innumerable benefits provided by our natural world.
The hundreds of millions of people living in slums across the world need access to affordable, sustainable food and energy – and to be consulted in the world-wide
drive for sustainable cities because they will form the majority of the population that will live in them.

For her the whole world needs the people of the developing world to be able to use their innovation and their energy to create a new model of low carbon and equitable development.

Her foundation, which she set up to promote climate justice, summarises this new development model as zero carbon, zero poverty –

and we are certain that we can achieve these dual outcomes with the right kind of international co-operation.

she said.

Though she is also aware that this includes the need for international financing for climate action – not as aid, but rather as part of the collective global recognition that while today’s rich countries built their prosperity from fossil fuels and unsustainable land use, leaders from the developing world are trying to find a way to a more sustainable model of developing without emissions.

The United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change provides the platform for advancing this international co-operation – and Minister Fabius and the French Government, as hosts of the Paris climate meeting, have been impressive in their recognition of the need for a mature discussion about the approach to international climate finance.

She ended her speech by reminding us that

we can solve climate change if we care about each other, and if we help each other.
But this possibility will only be realized if concerned citizens, organisations and businesses from across the world build informed, respectful partnerships with those who are willing to lead in the developing world.

She is finds it positive that there are many other individuals and organisations who are already thinking deeply about individual pieces of the climate puzzle. Women’s groups. Youth groups. Progressive businesses. Trades Unions. Grass-roots activists. In all countries, rich and poor.

She strongly urged those present to build from this meeting and reach out to all these groups.

If you do, your work today can be the spark that ignites an unprecedented wave of human
solidarity in the cause of climate action. You can gather into a “big tent” those who represent, and understand the lives of, billions of people.
Together, this movement can truly change the world.

she said.

On 1st January, 2016, the Sustainable Development Goals become the new development agenda for our world. Many believe we should mark that day with special prayer and
reflection to bring us together as a human family.
Together, we can show the world that human solidarity is not only the domain of religions and human rights activists. Rather it is the golden key that unlocks the collective power of billions of people. Those people can act together to build a more resilient world, stabilise our climate, and create an unprecedented attack on global poverty and inequality.

86-year-old Benin writer and politician Albert Teveodjré represented the views of secular thinkers.

“Nature was loaned to us as a place to live. I witness a world of profit at all costs which will ruin the environment and devastate everything. I am very worried. I think I will leave the world with many worries.”

Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development, COP21 President, delivered the closing speech at the Summit of Conscience at the Economic, Social and Environmental Council.
Following the informal ministerial conferences on July 20 and 21, which mobilized the international community at the political level, this event will provide an opportunity to address civil society and, beyond that, the public, in order to ensure the success of COP21.

The Summit has seen the launch of the “Green Faith in Action” project, a global initiative stemming from a coalition of partners with the objective of rendering pilgrimage destinations of all religious and spiritual persuasions, low-carbon cities resilient to climate disruptions. Three hundred million pilgrims travel to these cities each year.

As I wrote already in an other posting we do have to go “Forward ever, backwards never!” and should not only look for positive constructive dreams, which lead us further to the right path, but should also get more people involved in trying to work and motivate others to work at a balance in our position in creation and to find a good way to live in respect to nature. Let us for some moment think also that “Less… is still enough” and that we can, if we are inventive enough, find ways to still have more than we need, living in Luxury, without damaging nature around us. sometimes it would not be bad to take on ‘A bird’s eye and reflecting from within’. Let us look at what is going on, how we can stop the bad evolution, twist the curve of the negative way and come to a good healthy path for all creatures in the world.

*

The 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Paris in December this year. An effective and equitable international agreement will be critical for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature rise to 2 degree Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate impacts. France, as the host and chair of COP21, is committed to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious agreement at COP 21.

ending the day with the speakers handing over the baton to the children

+

Preceding articles:

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed

Mayors from all over the world at the Vatican to talk about climate change

++

Additional reading:

+++

Find the main site of this project: Why do I care

+++

Further reading:

+++

Related articles

Rate this:

#Africa #AlbertTeveodjré #AlinaSaba #Amazon #Asia #Atheists #CarbonFootprint #CarbonPollution #CarbonEmitters #ChanKhong #Christians #ClimateChange #CongoBasin #DavidRosen #DominiqueLang #EcumenicalPatriarchBartholomew #FletcherHarper #FrederickOnaelShoo #GreenFaithInAction #HenrikMadsen #HumanSolidarity #JeanLucFauque #KhaledBentounes #LatinAmerica #LaurentFabius #MahamandeshwarSwamiAvdeshanandGiri #MaryRobinson #Materialism #Morality #NanditaKrishna #NathanKyamanywa #Poverty #SaileshRao #Selfishness #SheikhBentounes #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #SwamiAmritasvarupananda #TakayukiAshizu #UnitedNationsFrameworkConventionForClimateChange #Universe #VinyaAriyaratne #WorldSummitOfConscienceInternationalInterfaithGathering

#africa #albertteveodjre #alinasaba #amazon #asia #atheists

Marcus Ampe's Space @[email protected] · 2015-07-26 · 16:31 UTC

Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #2

Mobilization of conscience on a global scale that will enable humanity to meet this great challenge confronting us.

Continuation of Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #1

Being aware that 2015 is a dramatic year for making key choices for Humanity the pre-meeting in Paris called for us to to reinvent how we tackle the major challenges that face us and our planet. This calls for new ways of living and acting.

Filipino environmentalist and Senator Loren Legarda said:

“I come from a country that is 0.3 percent emitter of carbon in the world and yet we are one of the most vulnerable nations as you have seen and witnessed with Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Being a vulnerable nation that is not the cause of this vulnerability, we hope that the Philippines will be the first to show the outcome of this Summit,”

As a notable advocate of Climate Change Awareness having numerous achievements in the fields of social development and human rights advocacy on her palmares, chairing the Senate committees on Environment and Natural Resources, and Climate Change, she stated her commitment to launch a Summit of Consciences for the Climate in the Philippines.

“I will write a memo to President Benigno Aquino III and we will initiate and launch in all the cities and municipalities, barangays, and state universities and colleges all over the country our own Summit of Consciences for the Climate,”

she said.

M. Kofi Annan, Chair of “the Elders”, Chairman of the “Kofi Annan Foundation”, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations, who was greatly blessed by the birth of a third grandchild, which caused him to reflect on the world as he has known it and how it may look by the time this child would reach his age.

It was a sobering moment. I know that if action is not taken immediately to stop and reverse current climate trends, my grandson will live in a world where the average global temperature could be several degrees higher than when I was a child. The result will be suffocating heat waves, severe droughts, disastrous floods, and devastating wildfires. Entire regions would experience a catastrophic decline in food production. Glaciers and ice sheets would disappear, leading to rising sea levels – drowning cities such as New York or Venice and small island states.
This brings to mind what Nikita Khrushchev said when reflecting on the impact of a potential nuclear war:
“the living will envy the dead”.

He stressed that

“The earth is not ours; it is a treasure we hold in trust for our children. We must be worthy of that trust.”

We well be close to reaching the tipping point beyond which man-made climate change risks denying many children and their generation the right to a healthy and sustainable planet, we should know it is no science fiction, no movie and certainly not too late to take action.

Climate change is a challenge, which can and should be confronted. The history of humanity is a story of ingenuity when faced by grave threats.

It is good to hear that we already have success stories to inspire us and that since the the 1980s, when satellite photos revealed a massive hole in the ozone, already several steps are taken in the good direction.

Africa is already experiencing the damaging impact of climate change; yet no region has done less to contribute to global warming than Africa.

In 2012, Sub-Saharan Africa – without South Africa – emitted only 2 per cent of total global
greenhouse gas emissions. So it is unfair of our industrialised capitalist countries not to avoid that climate change will turn vast areas of productive land in Africa into dust
bowls, creating widespread hunger and mass displacement of rural populations.

Also in the talks at the Vatican was it made clear that our way of polluting and industrialising plays a big role how the life chances of people are. It is reprehensible how certain concerns like Nestlé go to take away the drinking water in India and South America to sell it at a high price in our regions. Having more places where lack of water, to much drought or dryness makes wastelands, creates increased competition and conflicts over arable land and fresh water amongst local communities and provokes tensions between states.

Though Kofi Annan thinks there is hope:

But by tapping into its vast potential of renewable energy, Africa can boost economic growth, create jobs, and avoid the high-carbon pathway that has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe.

His Excellency M. Michael Higgins, President of Ireland finds that climate change is the great challenge of our time, already challenging most severely those already poor, for whom, if we do not act, it will deliver devastation.

Ours may be the final generation with the opportunity to effectively respond to the now urgent effects of climate change.

he says, finding this year marking a defining moment for the future of humanity.

In this year 2015 we will decide on what must be a shared universal response to climate change – and on a practical agenda for action.
We will also this year decide on what should be sought as ‘development’ in the wake of the Millennium Development Goals, in response to global poverty and increasing global inequality.

The meetings in Addis Ababa, New York, Italy and again here in Paris, taken together, constitute a sequence of proximate and interlinked moments where the governments of the world are confronted with urgent choices, choices that cannot be avoided and may give us some positive expectations knowing that several people who have something to say, are listened at by those in power in different states all over the world.

From previous debates and summits we have learned that we may not be too optimistic but have to be realistic, knowing that lots of ego‘s have to be convinced of the necessity to put the hands together and to join forces.
Leaders and their representatives the last few years have been presented with enough research documents by scientists and by enough opportunities to construct a new
order for humanity and for our planet.

The political and technical decisions that are to be made over the coming months may be complex, but ultimately the great challenges of our time are ethical and intellectual in their nature. It is especially fitting then, that we have been offered this opportunity by President Hollande to consider what are questions of conscience, of inter-generational justice, and that we do so here in Paris, a city at the heart of a great French intellectual tradition.

said Mr. Higgins.

Those in charge of governments should put their own ego and their political party’s ego aside and should listen more to specialised people. They must begin with an acceptance of the evidence of science. For the Irish president it is now clear that failure to respond to the scientific reality of climate change may ultimately lead to the destruction of life
on our planet.

We must therefore unequivocally reject the position of those who would obscure the scientific reality of climate change in their protection of any narrow and short-term self-interest. The first ethical test is in accepting that there can be no compromise with truth.

Those valuable intellectual and spiritual contributions we have seen coming into the open for the general public, should not only inform that public but also inform a new ethical framework on which a new harmonious and sustainable paradigm not only of development, but of true security, can be built, hopes the Irish president.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, President and founder of R20 says:

“This year alone we will dump 40bn tonnes of carbon emissions into our atmosphere. The World Health Organization says that air pollution causes over 7 million premature deaths every year and all over the world we can see flooding, monster storms, droughts and wild-fires that are completely out of control.”
“When it comes to moving the world to a sustainable, low-carbon, clean energy future, I believe the Science is in, the debate is over and the time for action is now. But despite clear scientific evidence and overwhelming support of the people, our national and global leaders are failing to seriously combat climate change. That’s why I have made a clean energy future my mission through the R20, just as I have done with Physical fitness for decades. And I strongly believe that religious and faith leaders can demonstrate in their respective pilgrim cities that this better future is possible, inspiring hundreds of millions of pilgrims to take action, just like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi inspired human rights revolutions.”

Prince Albert of Monaco finds that our mobilization proceeds from a personal journey which falls under our profound choice, meaning we want to give to our existence.

What we do, how we live, will have consequences for our children and those who come after them. The work committed by the different groups all over the world should get the world leaders to think and should get it also to them to allow each browse the turn, giving the intellectual, material and moral of understanding through education, information, training, tirelessly alerting our contemporaries. Giving them concrete prospects for change, progress and hope, according to the prince.

David Nussbaum, CEO of WWF-UK, having gained two theology degrees (though not sure those count as ‘spiritual achievements’!), and Chair of the international WWF Network’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative.

David Nussbaum, CEO of WWF-UK, grew up on a rural university campus, and had annual holidays in the hills of north Wales – so the natural world was usually close at hand. For him

Some theological study of eschatology pointed me to renewed creation (rather than merely ethereal existence) as the end vision. Years later, working in the packaging industry, we were getting to grips with the need for more recycling and improving the environmental credentials of our processes and products.
Working subsequently for Oxfam, I saw at first hand the dependence of people living in poverty on their immediate natural environment. Connecting this to biblical themes of justice and stewardship creates an imperative to action – recently captured in the papal encyclical ‘Laudato Si’ – ‘On Care for our Common Home’.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, Ghanaian president of the Vatican’s Pontifical council for justice and peace, who helped Pope Francis write the encyclical on human ecology published last month, said that the climate is a common good. The pope had asked the unprecedented ecological statement should be seen as an appeal for responsibility and a moral challenge to the global indifference to climate change.

“It is a global common meant for all but the costs are being borne by those who have least contributed to it.

This is something what we cannot overlook. We in the ‘West’ have lived like everything was at our disposal and could use everything nature provided, like nothing. Living in industrialised countries we should take our responsibility, and as I said in previous postings, we should be very careful what resources we use and from where we get our products at what cost.

The cardinal gave as message:

“At stake now is the wellbeing of the earth, our common hope. What we need is care. When we care for something it is with passion and commitment of the heart. That’s why Pope Francis called for care of the earth. A sense of passion is needed.”

It is now up to politicians and those responsible for great industrial concerns to show the world how they are concerned and how much they care.

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To be continued: Paris World Summit of Conscience, International interfaith gathering #3

Preceding articles:

Forms of slavery, human trafficking and disrespectful attitude to creation to be changed