This situation deeply affects the churches and their witness in society. In this context of growing inequality, concentration of power, social exclusion and ecological destruction, people are longing for life with dignity in just and sustainable communities . If that goal is to be attained we need to work for equity as basic fairness that also extends to other life forms, accountability as a way of being responsible towards one another and Earth itself, participation as the optimal inclusion of all involved, sufficiency as a commitment to meet the basic needs of all, and subsidiarity as determining the most appropriate level for decision-making, supporting the downwards distribution of power. Rio de Janeiro streetchild outside a MacDonald's restaurant. The WCC Climate Change programme, starting in 1988, emphasized that beyond technical changes in areas such as energy, transport and economic policy, what is required is a fundamental reorientation of the socioeconomic structures and personal lifestyles that got us into trouble in the first place.
Small island states - most vulnerable to global warming.
Under the auspices of the United Nations, governments have been negotiating treaties to address climate change since 1989. Emission trading With the Kyoto Protocol, however, attention has shifted away from emission reduction in the richer polluting countries towards strategies for those countries to purchase low-cost reduction credits in other countries. Countries which use the global atmospheric commons in excess of the convergence level would have to pay a user penalty into a Global Atmospheric Commons Fund. The fund would assist impoverished countries and those with economies in transition to move towards a non-carbon economy focusing on renewable energy sources such as solar, biomass, wind and small scale hydroelectric. Full statement Daily coverage of COP 6 - International Climate Conference, The Hague, November 2000 WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser presented the WCC Climate Change Campaign petition to the UN during a COP meeting in Bonn, March 1997.