Catholic presence at Copenhagen enviro conference

There is a notable Catholic presence at the current UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen.

Two Jesuits from OCIPE (the Jesuits' European office) in Brussels, José Ignacio Garcia (CAS) and Jacques Haers (BSE), are at the COP15 Climate Conference in Copenhagen as NGO observers, part of a team of Franciscans International.

They are blogging in English and in Spanish, and reflect their personal reflections and experiences. This blog can be visited at: ignatianeconet.wordpress.com.

The Vatican is also represented at conference. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the Vatican's permanent observer to the United Nations, is leading the five-person Vatican delegation at the Copenhagen conference. He is scheduled to speak to the UN during the Dec. 7-18 conference.

The delegation included climate expert Marcus Wandinger, and Paolo Conversi, an official of the Vatican Secretariat of State who teaches human ecology at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University. Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for more than 150 Catholic charities, will also be represented. The Vatican has called for "effective and binding agreement in Copenhagen" that is based on several essential criteria:

A commitment by developed countries to pledge at least $195 billion in public financing per year by 2020 to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

-- An international commitment to keep global warming well below 2 degrees C (about 3.6 degrees F), and to reach a peak in greenhouse gas emissions in the period 2013-2017.

-- Agreement by developed countries to a greenhouse gas emissions target of more than 40% below 1990 levels by 2020, to be reached mainly by domestic emission reductions.

-- That Copenhagen outcomes be legally binding and enforceable.