| International News

In an May 10 statement to the U.N. Economic and Social Council’s Commission on Sustainable Development on “Turning Political Commitments into Action, Working together in Partnership,” Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio of the Holy See’s permanent mission to the U.N., stressed that the scientific evidence for global warming and mankind’s role in the increase of greenhouse gasses “becomes ever more unimpeachable” and its effects already impacting the world community.

“The consequences of climate change are being felt not only in the environment, but in the entire socio-economic system, Archbishop Migliore said, noting that “such activity has a profound relevance, not just for the environment, but in ethical, economic, social and political terms as well.”

Global warming, he said, “will impact first and foremost the poorest and weakest who, even if they are among the least responsible for global warming, are the most vulnerable because they have limited resources or live in areas at greater risk.”

The issues surrounding climate change are far-reaching, the Vatican nuncio said, pointing to the connection between it and the drive to acquire and consume energy and water resources and protecting human health and the environment.

“The earth is our common heritage and we have a grave and far-reaching responsibility to ourselves and to future generations,” he said.

The international community, Archbishop Migliore said, must come to terms to establish a “common, global, long-term energy strategy, capable of satisfying legitimate short- and medium-term energy requirements, ensuring energy security, protecting human health and the environment and establishing precise commitments to address the question of climate change.”

The nuncio spoke with some urgency, noting that the U.N. Security Council recently dealt with the relationship of energy, security and climate change.

“We are already witnessing struggles for the control of strategic resources such as oil and fresh water, both of which are becoming ever scarcer,” he said.

“If we refuse to build sustainable economies now, we will continue to drift towards more tensions and conflicts over resources,” Archbishop Migliore warned, pointing to “many of the most vulnerable societies already facing energy problems” “and to the threatened “very existence of coastal peoples and small island states.”

To meet the “double challenge” of climate change and the need for “ever greater energy resources, the nuncio called for the world community to embrace more sustainable development in which there is a much closer link between “natural ecology, or respect for nature, and human ecology.”

“We will have to change our present model from one of the heedless pursuit of economic growth in the name of development, towards a model which heeds the consequences of its actions and is more respectful towards the creation we hold in common, coupled with an integral human development for present and future generations,” he said.

“Experience shows that disregard for the environment harms human coexistence,” the archbishop said, adding that the international community must make the connection between making “peace with creation and peace among nations.”

He stressed the importance of technology and education to build a more sustainable economy.

“Economic growth does not have to mean greater consumption,” Archbishop Migliore said. “It does however mean that we will need technology, ingenuity, determined political will and common sense.”

He added that it will also mean the transference of technology to developing countries “to the benefit of the entire global community.”

But beyond the development of technology and the “political will” to collaborate internationally, education at the level of each nation is required to ensure that the mankind “approach our daily patterns of consumption and production in a very different way.”

“Through such education, states can help their citizens grasp the urgency of what must be done, teaching them in turn to expect and demand a very different approach to their own consumption and that around them,” he said.

He noted that “we cannot simply uninvent the modern world,” but that there is the chance to remedy the “worldwide, unprecedented ecological changes” already taking place.

“None of us can foresee fully the consequences of man’s industrial activity over the recent centuries,” he noted. “But there is still time to use technology and education to promote universally sustainable development before it is too late.

Archbishop Migliore addressed the issue of sustainable development and global climate change before the U.N. General Assembly last fall, noting that the world needs to undergo an “ecological conversion” or face the consequences of the global life support ...