The ongoing UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen has considerable presence of the Catholic Church, particularly noted are two Jesuits who blog their reflections on the meet.

Jesuit Father José Ignacio Garcia and Jacques Haers from the Jesuits’ European office are attending the climate conference in Copenhagen as NGO observers, part of a team of Franciscans International.

They are blogging in English and in Spanish, and reflect their personal reflections and experiences. This blog can be visited at: ignatianeconet.wordpress.com.

The Vatican is also represented at conference. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, is leading the five-person Vatican delegation at the Dec. 7-18 conference.

The delegation included climate expert Marcus Wandinger, and Paolo Conversi, an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State who teaches human ecology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for more than 150 Catholic charities, will also be represented. The Vatican has called for “effective and binding agreement in Copenhagen.”

The agreement is based on several essential criteria. One of them demands a commitment by developed countries to pledge at least $195 billion in public financing per year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

It also want an international commitment to keep global warming well below 2 degrees C (about 3.6 degrees F), and to reach a peak in greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2013-2017.

The Vatican also wants an agreement by developed countries to a greenhouse gas emissions target of more than 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, to be reached mainly by domestic emission reductions.

Source:  Catholic presence at Copenhagen enviro conference (Spero news)

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