PRIOR TO THE CREATION OF THE TASK FORCE
Faith-based, religiously, and spiritually based work for the environment has been growing for decades, but the 2015 Parliament clarified and emphasized the urgent need for the cooperation with which we must act, and recognized that human-caused climate change poses risks to every aspiration of sustainable development.
Attendees adopted the statement “Embracing Our Common Future: An Interfaith Call to Action on Climate Change” and committed the wholehearted effort of the Parliament to action. The genesis of the CATF is found in the Salt Lake City Declaration on Climate Change.
An all-hands-on-deck climate campaign was launched upon closure of the 2015 Parliament mobilizing participants to rally on the pathway to the UNFCCC Paris COP21 where the watershed Paris Climate Agreement was adopted. Read more here: “7 Ways the Parliament Stepped Up to Challenge Climate Change in 2015.”
With 66 programs dedicated to the environment, there was a shift from faith-focused interpretations of “Earth care” to forward-thinking interfaith-based advocacy at grassroots and international levels. Important programs were the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change, an Indigenous Call to care for the Earth, and a symposium of experts, “Connection to Copenhagen.”
Thousands of messages from Parliament participants reached world leaders who gathered a few days later for COP15 conference in Copenhagen, scripted onto a 200-foot long banner asking to “Protect the Only Earth We Have.” Following the Salt Lake City Parliament, the Parliament sponsored an official Ambassador on Climate to present its appeal to the United Nation’s Secretary General at the COP21 Paris Climate Conference.
300 “Gifts of Service to the World” included dozens of personal and organizational commitments to sustainable practices and policies by Parliament attendees.
A proclamation of “global warming” called for the attention of the world’s religions at the inaugural plenary, and the principle of care for the Earth and all life was an essential theme of the Global Ethic there adopted.
