“The political will must be sustained by moral responsability”- His Holiness Aram I

This year, from June 25-27th 2010, leaders from the world’s most powerful countries, the G8/G20 nations, will meet in Canada for their annual summit. These leaders meet every year to agree to make decisions that will affect the worlds’ most vulnerable people and the planet itself.

Since 2005, senior faith leaders from across the world have held an interfaith Religious Leaders Summit, in conjunction with the G8 summit. Their goal is to issue a statement calling on the G8 to fulfill the Millennium Development Goals affecting the world’s most poor and vulnerable; to ensure concrete and sustainable progress is made in the areas of eradicating poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and global partnership for development.

The 2010 Interfaith Partnership hosted by the World Religions Leaders Summit in the G8 Nations, which took place in Winnipeg, Canada, from 20-23 June 22, 2010. More than hundred people representing all religions of the world attended the Summit.

His Holiness Aram I, chaired one of the three major sections, the climate change. Here are some of the thoughts and perspectives expressed by His Holiness, in his public interventions and interviews with media.

· The wholeness, integrity and sustainability of the creation must be safeguarded. This is absolutely essential to protect eco-system.

· The prevailing economic strategies promoting endless growth, high consumption lifestyles of the industrialized nations must be challenged. They generate moral, spiritual and ecological evil.

· The close inter-connectedness of economy and ecology must be taken seriously. Economic growth is one of the major causes of the ecological crisis. It reduces the non-renewable recourses of the planet.

· We must develop an eco-theology that restores right relationship between nations and between humanity and the creation by promoting new economic policies that are compatible with the earth’s reproductive limits, and by just distributing of world’s recourses.

· Climate change is neither a conceptual notion nor academic issue. It is a reality of existential nature and scope, impacting the human life in all its dimensions, spheres and manifestations.

· Climate warming has its environmental, social, economic and political aspects and implications. But it is essentially a spiritual-ethical issue, since its deals with humanity-creation-God relationship.

· The human being is the steward of the creation, not its owner or master. Hence, misuse and abuse of the creation is a sin against the Creator.

· As religious leaders we must tackle the climate change from an ethical-spiritual perspective. We must underscore the sacredness and fullness of life and promote a holistic approach to life. We must remind the world leaders the inter-connectedness of ecological sustainability and socio-economic justice.

· The prophetic role of religion consists in reminding, challenging and facilitating. Religions should not react but act with the players of civil society as partners. Action oriented advocacy, education, public awareness, networking; building morally sustainable communities must become integral to the vocation of religions.

Source: