Climate Change is a Moral Issue, Christians Tell U.N. Delegates

Christian activists are urging delegates at a United Nations conference to consider climate change as an ethical issue. “We hear about climate change as a political issue, an environmental issue, and an economic issue,” said Marcia Owens, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. “We want to press the point that this is a moral issue.” The Christian activists, who are attending U.N. climate talks being held this week in Ghana, point to increasingly frequent and widespread droughts in Africa, which have had the greatest impact on the poor. “It is not moral for some people to go to bed with a full stomach when others go to bed with their stomach empty,” said Rosemary Mayiga, a Ugandan Catholic and rural economist. Some scientists have also recently begun pointing to the ethical dimensions of climate change.