Network of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa

NECCSA UPDATE: APRIL 2009

A monthly newsletter on Church and Environment in South Africa

1.  Countdown to Earth Hour as global momentum builds

Geneva, Switzerland - The statue of Christ overlooking Rio de Janeiro suddenly slipped into darkness. So did the Golden Gate bridge, the Eiffel tower and South Africa's Table Mountain.

From San Francisco to Shanghai, from Stockholm to Sydney, tens of millions of people prepared for "Earth Hour," when, at 8.30pm on Saturday (March 28), they will turn off their lights to send the world's political leaders a signal they cannot possibly miss or misunderstand that people are demanding action on the issue of climate change.

An idea launched two years ago by WWF's Sydney office in an attempt to prod recalcitrant Australian politicians into action on climate change has struck a chord that now resonates across the globe. An estimated two million Sydney residents turned out their lights in 2007. In 2008, 371 cities in 35 countries joined the show and the number of participants the numbers leapfrogged to around 53 million. This year, some 1500 cities and towns in more than 75 countries have signed on and promoters are hoping it will attract close to a billion people.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged people to participate in Earth Hour, joining a roster of public figures supporting what Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another protagonist, describes as a global vote for action on climate change and potentially one of the greatest social movements the world has ever witnessed.

Climate change is the greatest human-induced crisis facing the world today. It is totally indiscriminate of race, culture and religion. It affects every human being on the planet, Archbishop Tutu said in a statement released by WWF. If we all perform this one simple act together, it will send a message to our governments too powerful for them to ignore.

The urgency of that act and the message it delivers is sharpened by the global financial crisis. Many political leaders are not hearing the public demands for action on climate change they needed to hear and that's what Earth Hour is about, says James Leape, Director General of the WWF's global network.

What you get from a lot of leaders is `we aren't hearing a demand from our constituency that we put this issue front and centre, what we're hearing from them is fix the economy', Leape adds. The danger in the financial crisis is that it will be used as an excuse to defer action on climate.

Scientists warn that's an option fraught with extreme peril. All of the signals from the earth system and the climate system show us we are on a path with enormous and unacceptable consequences, said Professor Katherine Richardson, organizer of a conference in Copenhagen earlier this month to review the latest data on climate change.

Climate change is not an issue that's going to go away, says Leape. Every year we put up more and more carbon into the atmosphere which stays up there for a long time. Every year you delay taking action, the costs of get higher and success in tackling emissions gets more difficult. That's why we really have to get on with it.

This year's Earth Hour is particularly timely coming just days before the G20 summit in London. Activists hope it will help to push climate change back to the top of an international agenda now dominated by the global financial crisis and in the process generate the political momentum needed to get governments to agree on aggressive action to curb carbon emissions at the UN's Copenhagen summit on climate change in December.

The London summit, focused on coordinating responses to the global financial crisis, will not be the occasion to decide action on climate change, but its leaders need to recognize that economic recovery and climate change are complementary, not competing priorities.

Indeed, climate change needs to be at the center of economic recovery initiatives, argues Nicholas Stern, the British economist assigned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to assess the impact of climate change and chairman of a research institute examining the issue. Governments need to ensure that the many billions of dollars they are investing in stimulus packages do not lock their economies into costly and unsustainable technologies. Moreover, the London summit presents an opportunity to focus leaders of the world's richest and biggest economies on what they need to do and galvanize action ahead of Copenhagen in December.

It can say that climate change is a problem that has to be addressed this year, says Leape, that industrialized countries need to commit to aggressive targets for reducing carbon emissions, that all countries need to commit to low carbon growth in the developing world and that industrialized countries need to put in place the robust financial mechanisms that can make that possible.

At Copenhagen, Leape points out, industrialized countries need to agree to cut their carbon emissions by 25% to 40% of the 1990 level by 2020, developing countries have to recognize the importance of their emissions and agree to participate in cuts, tropical forest countries will need to agree and act to cut deforestation and developed economies will have to find in the order of €100 billion a year up to 2020.

Achieving consensus on these goals looks a formidable challenge in the prevailing mood of crisis and uncertainty, yet Leape still sees a number of positive influences: a recent McKinsey & Co. study underlines that the costs of moving to a low-carbon economy are eminently affordable; indeed countries as China, South Korea and the US are already investing heavily on green stimulus measures; a third factor of critical importance has been the advent of a new administration in the US.

It's been very difficult for the international community to make progress on this issue in face of the resistance from the US over the past eight year, WWF's Leape says. With the US coming into the game we now have the potential for critical mass. It has given people new hope that we can come together round this in the timeline we have set.

It's now down to politicians around the globe whether or not they do. By turning out their lights for Earth Hour, Archbishop Tutu points out, the public will be telling them the eyes of the world are watching.

See also www.earthhour.org.za

2. A Rocha SA AGM

A Rocha's AGM will be held on 28 March at 14:00 where Rob Scott-Shaw will present Grasslands and Forests - KZN's Lifeline for Sustainability at the KZN Botanical Gardens Restuarant in Pietermaritzburg. Refreshments and a short business meeting will follow with our national Trustees. Please respond to this mailing with apologies or your RSVP so that A Rocha can cater for this special occasion.

Allen Goddard, Director, 031 345 8540, allen.goddard@arocha.org, www.arocha.org

3. Religious Leaders for a Sustainable Future

In response to the three days of deliberation, representatives from the various faith communities adopted the following declaration:

We, the members of faith communities from across southern Africa, in partnership with Indalo Yethu, gathered at a summit of religious leaders for sustainability held from the 10th to 12th February 2009, in Midrand, South Africa. We acknowledge that while we are of diverse faith traditions with varying beliefs and practices, we are united through our common commitment to a just care of the earth and all of God's creation. In all our diverse religions we have a common calling by our creator to care for, protect and sustain creation for this and future generations.

Over three days of dialogue, debate and discussion, we have deliberated on the critical environmental issues of water, climate change, waste management, food security and biodiversity.

It was noted with deep concern that an underlying cause of much environmental degradation is our current economic system which places the interest of capital above the well-being of the poor and the natural environment. Our current economic system is grossly unjust. The poorest fifty percent of the world's population owns only one percent of the world's wealth; the richest one percent own forty percent of global assets. This is an affront to God who provides sufficient for our needs, not our greed. God commands us to seek justice if we want peace.

We believe that we have confused money with wealth. "Money is only a measure of wealth and a means of exchange. Real wealth is good land, pristine forests, clean rivers, healthy animals, vibrant communities, nourishing food and human creativity."[1] The degradation of the environment has direct negative consequences for the poor, who form the majority of our communities in southern Africa. The poisoning and polluting of our air, water and soils affects us all. We believe we need to bring ethics into the dealings of business and we encourage business and industry to recognise their responsibilities towards the poor of the world as well as to the natural environment.

Similarly the conference noted the enormous responsibility of governments, as curators of the environment entrusted with taxpayers' resources, to carry out this mandate. As faith communities we have a responsibility to engage governments continuously on the development and implementation of legislation that safeguards God's creation, in order to improve the lives of the poor and ensure the sustainability of the earth and all the life it supports.

We believe that faith based communities have a significant role to play in the nurturing and protection of God's creation. We call on religious leaders to place environmental justice at the forefront of their agenda, to promote a value based economic system and to take steps to safeguard the future of our children and planet earth. This requires religious leaders from all faiths to take practical steps to integrate `earthkeeping' into liturgy, worship and celebration as well as to implement environmental programmes and interventions at the congregational level.

This summit agrees to endorse the following five values-based principles for a new economic system. This would involve an economy:

1 designed to meet human needs to improve the quality of life

2 bounded by ecosystem limits

3 embracing equity for present and future generations

4 grounded in reverence for life

5 striving for flexibility and innovation [2]

We also declare our concern and commitment to respond to the broad issues of climate change, water, biodiversity loss, food security and waste through the attached resolutions developed and agreed upon by consensus as well as through the following statements of commitment:

• On Climate Change and Energy: We recognise that communities of Africa are particularly vulnerable to climate change, and in addressing this we urge South Africa to continue to play a leadership role both regionally and internationally in climate change negotiations. We understand the need for urgency to reduce greenhouse gases. As people of faith we recognise that we have a responsibility to care for the planet and all life on it as well as caring for our fellow human beings. This responsibility includes leaving a healthy planet for future generations so that they are not robbed of their inheritance. We need to move from an energy intensive economy to one that places people and the environment at the centre.

• On Water: While we recognise that clean water has spiritual value and is a precious commodity essential for the wellbeing and survival of all life, we acknowledge that many of our rivers and water supply systems are in a critical state. Amongst other remedial actions we call on our members and the government to encourage all citizens to recognise the value of water and therefore to use it sparingly, ensuring it is not polluted or wasted through irresponsible usage or leakage. At the same time we call on the government to ensure that nobody is deprived of water because of its cost.

• On Biodiversity: We recognise that biodiversity is the earth's rich living heritage and that life on this planet flourishes through diversity. We acknowledge that in southern Africa, a region that has the third highest level of biodiversity in the world, life is being threatened and destroyed by human activities due to habitat loss, pollution, climate change, invasion of alien species and the over-exploitation of natural resources. We recognise that we humans have a responsibility to maintain the health of the planet and to care for, protect and preserve the diversity of all life on the earth.

• On Food Security: We know that all people are dependent on adequate and nutritious food and yet too many people go to bed hungry. We note with concern how oil-based agri-business, monopolistic multi-national companies and the growing biofuel industry is concentrating high-tech agricultural production in fewer hands and is impacting negatively on biodiversity, food security, rising food costs, soil fertility and health. The solution to this crisis lies in more labour intensive organic farming. We believe localised actions to mitigate the crisis are needed and that it is the duty of governments of the world to strive to seek justice, fairness and ecological sustainability in the production and trading of food. We express our particular concern that the subsidy of food production in developed countries and trade regulations are causing massive suffering and food shortages around the world.

• On Waste: More than 25 million tons of waste is generated and disposed of in South Africa every year. Littering and pollution continue to be a growing threat to the health and wellbeing of all life on the planet. This is a product of our consumer culture. Waste is `something that nobody wants at a particular moment in time', but one person's waste can be raw material to another. We believe it to be both practical and visionary to strive to become a zero waste society, emulating nature where neither material nor energy is ever wasted. We are deeply conscious of the role a clean and aesthetically pleasing environment can play in affirming human dignity and promoting physical, psychological and spiritual wellbeing. We also recognise the positive role we, as members of faith communities can play, in partnership with government, industry, business and civil society, in restoring the earth and in helping to reduce our carbon footprint and the mountains of waste we produce.

Through the support and facilitation of SAFCEI we agree to work with renewed vigour to implement the resolutions we have agreed upon. It is our firm belief that all of these efforts need to be done in partnership which we will continue to forge with all faith communities, as well as environmental, civil society and appropriate government bodies. SAFCEI acknowledges with gratitude, the partnership with Indalo Yethu, that has made this summit possible. We hope to continue developing this partnership as we seek to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes in the years ahead. Environmental challenges are not going to diminish and we need a coordinated effort, built on strong partnerships, to meet them.

Notes:

• You are welcome to distribute this NECCSA Update electronically to any other interested person. You are also welcome to send news to be included in the next NECCSA update to andreww@stjohnbaptist.co.za by 16 April 2009. You may send such contributions in the language of your choice.

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• NECCSA's banking details are: First National Bank, Musgrave Rd Branch, Branch code: 221126, Cheque account number: 62035719064.

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