News Archives » climate change
Fossil Fuels: Divestment vs Engagement April 13th, 2015
Trying to shift the global economy away from polluting, dangerous fossil fuels that we use very day – to clean, renewable fuel sources that can power our economy well into the future, is a complicated task. While the rate of growth of renewable energy sources is increasing rapidly, it is still far behind what we need to avoid pushing past a 2degree limit on temperature increase. The climate change movement, 350.org, has spearheaded a movement to pressure institutions, from charitable Foundations to universities, to divest from stocks of fossil fuel companies. While there are good financial arguments for doing so, based on concern about stranded assets, there is also an argument to be made for continued engagement with oil and gas companies on climate change issues. Laura Berry, Executive Director of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), makes the case for engagement in a letter to the UK-based Guardian newspaper, in response to a recent article.
Here is her response:
“Members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a coalition of more than 300 faith-based institutions representing more than $100bn in invested capital, have been engaging the fossil fuel industry to address climate change since before the term was coined. You could say they are gnarled veterans of shareholder engagement with an industry, like tobacco, that is “on the ropes” due to a product offering that continues to be in high demand yet is widely known to present clear public health risks. The conundrum responsible owners of these companies face is not new; it is a tension that they have faced for decades. The divest/engage debate fuelled by your article (Climate campaigners losing faith in value of engaging with fossil fuel firms, theguardian.com, 7 April), which seeks to oversimplify the issue and to divide climate activists, only underscores the complexities of the problem and the genuinely difficult tasks we all face in shifting the energy industry, and our economy, on to a more sustainable path. Is shareholder engagement difficult and slow? Most definitely. Is it enough? Of course not. But do we still believe engagement is a powerful tool for social change? We do.”
“Responsible investors are deploying all their tools – divestment, engagement and everything between – to advance green energy solutions because we believe multiple and collective, inside and outside strategies are needed for what is a herculean task. Is the cause best served by discrediting the methodologies of our allies or leveraging the complementarities? Should we focus on our tactical differences or concentrate our collective energies on our common climate change enemies: investor apathy and policy inertia? We propose the latter.”
Laura Berry
Executive Director, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility
Petition seeks ‘strong Catholic voice’ demanding action on climate change April 10th, 2015
Citing a papal directive to take decisive action on climate change, the Global Catholic Climate Movement has started a petition which seeks to display “a strong Catholic voice” of concern on climate change ahead of international negotiations set for Paris in December.
“Climate change affects everyone, but especially the poor and most vulnerable people. Impelled by our Catholic faith, we call on you to drastically cut carbon emissions to keep the global temperature rise below the dangerous threshold of 1.5°C, and to aid the world’s poorest in coping with climate change impacts,” reads the petition, accessible on the movement’s recently revamped website.
In a message delivered toward the end of the last climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, the pope said that decisive climate action “is a grave ethical and moral responsibility,” and warned that there exists “a clear, definitive and unpostponable ethical imperative to act.”
Sign the petition to register your support for strong action to mitigate climate change.
Learn more at National Catholic Reporter.
Faith Leaders Speak out on Climate March 5th, 2015
The comments below are from a talk given by Archbishop Thomas Wenski in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20. Archbishop Wenski was one of several religious leaders taking part on a briefing on religion and climate change sponsored by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. The briefing — aimed at Congress — took place at the Capitol Hill Visitors Center and was open to Congressional staffers, members of Congress, and representatives from the faith community. OMI JPIC staff attended the briefing. For a more complete version of the Archbishop’s remarks, please visit our partner organization, Catholic Rural Life.
The US Capitol Visitor Center
“While the precise details of how climate change will affect the world are not known, the projections shared by scientists have been alarming. We can no longer ignore the visible signs that changes are occurring in our environment that will affect all life, especially human life. In many poorer nations, years of relief and development work are being undone by prolonged droughts, more intense storms and other extreme weather conditions associated with climate change.”
“Bishops are not scientists but we are pastors — and in so far as climate change affects concrete human beings, it is a moral issue; and pastors, in exercising their care of their flocks, do weigh in — and appropriately so — on moral issues. Also, as Catholics, we firmly believe that the poor have a first claim on our consciences in matters pertaining to the common good. As the U.S. Catholic bishops said in our 2001 climate change statement, “Action to mitigate global climate change must be built upon a foundation of social and economic justice.”
“This past July, on behalf of the U.S. bishops, I wrote a letter supporting “the EPA proposal for a national standard to reduce significantly carbon pollution.” And while the devil may be in the details, I said: ‘These standards should protect the health and welfare of all people, especially children, the elderly, as well as poor and vulnerable communities, from harmful pollution emitted from power plants and from the impacts of climate change.’ ”
EPA Administrator to Meet Vatican Officials on Climate Change January 29th, 2015
The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency is scheduled to meet with senior officials at the Vatican on Friday on the issue of climate change. In an interview with National Catholic Reporter before her trip, Administrator McCarthy, a Roman Catholic from Massachusetts, described the Vatican stop as “the most important” on a five-day trip to Europe. The EPA, under the Obama Administration, has reached out to faith communities of all denominations, recognizing both that most have long teaching traditions on creation care, and that they have the ability to reach people in a meaningful way on the need to take action on climate change.
The moral aspect of climate change – the fact that the most vulnerable to the effects are also those who have done the least to create the problem, is recognized by the Administration. “Clearly, climate change is an issue that is impactful in terms of how we’re not just going to protect the most vulnerable but also take responsibility for protecting God’s natural resources,” McCarthy said.
“I think that the president and myself agree that climate change is indeed a moral issue,” she said. “It is about protecting those most vulnerable, and EPA’s job, as focusing on public health and environmental protection, always tasked ourselves to look at those most vulnerable and to ensure that when we’re taking action we’re addressing their needs most effectively.”
Midwestern Productivity at Risk from Unchecked Climate Change January 23rd, 2015
A newly released report by Risky Business finds that unchecked climate change will threaten Midwestern agricultural and industrial productivity. If you live in the Midwest, have family there, or simply eat any of the many agricultural products grown in the region, you will want to read the executive summary, if not the full version, of this report: http://riskybusiness.org/reports/midwest-report/executive-summary. The full report is available also at this link. The report emphasizes that it is still possible to take action to avoid the worst impacts.
Launched in October, 2013, the Risky Business Project focuses on quantifying and publicizing the economic risks from the impacts of a changing climate. It is backed by former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former US Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs executive, Hank Paulson, and Tom Steyer, a wealthy an American hedge fund manager, philanthropist, and environmentalist. They tasked the Rhodium Group, an economic research firm that specializes in analyzing disruptive global trends, with preparing an independent assessment of the economic risks posed by a changing climate in the U.S.
