Nature is God's gift, WCC official tells climate conference
Episcopal News Service. August 22, 1996 [96-1546I]
(ENS) "Nature, we believe, is a gift of God," the Rev. Sam Kobia of Kenya, director of the World Council of Churches' justice, peace and creation unit, declared to the recent second session of the United Nations conference on climate change. "It must not and cannot be dealt with as if it were our property." Kobia said the threat of climate change "touches the religious mind in a special way" and "reminds us of our fundamental dependence upon creation." The conference is part of a UN process to draw up further agreements under the climate change convention encouraging industrialized nations to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasses after the year 2000. Kobia told the delegates that industrialized countries live in "self-contradiction" when they talk about human rights but "allow the gap between the powerful and the weak to grow." As far as the nations' attitude toward nature is concerned, Kobia said "that risks are accumulating but we continue to behave as if we were clearly capable of mastering them."