Global climate change is an issue of justice. The industrialized nations, representing less than 20 percent of the world's population, are responsible for 75 to 80 percent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions. Yet those who live in poor and developing nations are the ones who will be most seriously effected by global warming. The North American suburbanite can afford to turn up the air conditioner and pay a little more for groceries. The peasant living in coastal Bangladesh would become an environmental refugee.
Climate change is also an issue of intergenerational justice.
The effects of global warming in our lifetimes may be minimal. It will not be so for our children and our children's children. Current North American energy-rich and overly consumptive lifestyles are being subsidized by the poor and by future generations. Christians understand the threat of global climate change in the context of covenant. Humankind has been given a special place in this covenant relation.