| Advocacy Issue: Global Climate Change |
Feb. 2/3, 2008 Public Policy Weekend
Global Warming/Global Climate Change
Click here for Resource Packet
April 22 is Earth Day
New York State will receive significant income from the sale of carbon dioxide emissions allowances to power plants under the new Northeast Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
The use of that income has not yet been determined by New York State.
As stewards of God’s creation, we call on Governor Spitzer and our New York State Senators and Assembly members to use this income to:
• foster energy efficiency/conservation
• fund renewable energy initiatives
• help poor/low-income New Yorkers pay utility costs
AND, we urge New York State leaders to move quickly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from all other sources (in addition to power plants).
Timeline/Resources for Parish Action:
Background: The recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ~ a synthesis of scientific findings from more than 100 countries, including the United States ~ found that the warming of earth’s climate is unequivocal, cites human activity as the likely cause and warns that continued greenhouse gas
emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and will induce many changes in the global
climate system during the 21st century.
The report has outlined more clearly and compellingly than ever before the case for serious and urgent action to address the potential consequences of global warming/climate change and highlights the dangers and costs of inaction. The potential impact on New York State residents includes heat waves/heat-related illness and death for the elderly, poor and vulnerable; rising sea levels; disruption of agriculture; torrential rain/flood; drought; loss of species and vegetation; spread of insect vectors and more.
New York produces a large share (more carbon dioxide pollution than 99 developing countries combined) of the carbon dioxide pollution which traps heat in the atmosphere causing the earth’s climate to be altered. New York State government has taken some good first steps, however, informed citizens must urge a response that matches the scale of the potential problem and involves individuals, family/households, faith/community, business and government.
Catholic Social Teaching*
· Priority for the Poor: Inadequate or misguided responses to climate change will likely place even greater burdens on already desperately poor peoples. Action to mitigate global climate change must be built upon a foundation of social and economic justice that does not put the poor at greater risk or place disproportionate and unfair burdens on developing nations.
· Pursuit of the Common Good: Responses to global climate change should reflect our
interdependence and common responsibility for the future of our planet. Individual nations must measure their own self-interest against the greater common good and contribute
equitably to global solutions. Our obligation to pass on the gift of God’s creation to future generations without doing irreversible harm is one aspect of the demands of the common good.
· Practice of Prudence: Prudence suggests that we do not have to know with absolute
certainty everything that is happening with climate change – it is better to act now than wait until the problem gets worse and the remedies more costly.
*Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence and the Common Good (U.S. Catholic Bishops )
