Paris Climate Accord Signed: Receives Both Support and Opposition from Faith Leaders and Scientists

Delegates
Delegates at the Paris Climate convention held on December 12. |

Many faith leaders from different denominations have lauded the Paris Agreement to limit global warming by reining in greenhouse gases, which was approved by delegates from 195 countries at the convention that had been held for 13 days and concluded on December 12.

Other religious organizations have come in opposition to the deal, cautioning that these conventions will hurt business and lead the world order towards a global centralized government. They further argue that much of the scientific data debunks the theory of global warming, and that the climate change is a phantom being promoted to push a "socialist" political agenda.

The ambitious goals of the accord include working to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, and to transfer a minimum of $100 billion annually, 2020 onwards, from rich to poor countries struggling with adapting to climate-friendly technology.

Several faith groups had been lobbying for a worldwide accord to enforce standard norms to reduce and control greenhouse gas emissions.

Pope Francis, who was also at the forefront of the advocacy movement in favor of climate change prevention through policy measures, had issued an encyclical in June urging world leaders to take it as their moral duty to protect the environment.

Addressing an audience at St. Peters Square a day after the accord was signed, Pope Francis said, "The climate conference has just ended in Paris with the adoption of an accord, which many are calling historic. Putting it into practice will need a concerted commitment and a generous dedication on the part of all. With the hope that special attention for the most vulnerable populations is guaranteed, I exhort the whole international community to proceed on the path undertaken in the name of an ever more effective solidarity."

In response to the historic agreement, Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid's Senior Climate Advisor said, "Negotiations were long and hard fought but the result is an agreement which will usher in a new dawn of climate aware politics. The era of politicians burying their heads in the sand is over."

"Crucially the Paris Accord has not left poor countries behind. Richer countries have committed to deliver the finance they promised to help developing countries adapt and grow in a clean and sustainable way," Adow continued. "For the first time in an international treaty clear consideration has also been given to loss and damage - support for countries facing climate change so severe it can't be adapted to."

Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) also came in support of the agreement.

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, meanwhile, expressed a more nuanced position on the Paris Agreement. In his podcast, called The Briefing, he stated that though any policies or changes made to protect the environment and to promote "human flourishing" may be a good thing, they must not be made on the assumption that humans are the source of the problems that are occurring in the environment.

"The biblical worldview simply does not allow the idea that in any sense, human beings themselves are a blight upon the planet," Mohler said. "The very sequential nature of the creation account in Genesis tells us that all of this was pointing to the eventual creation by God of the human being in order to exercise this very dominion over the created order."

"But at the same time, there is a second mandate, and that is the mandate of stewardship which is also plentiful and abundant in Scripture. Stewardship reminds us that we are not the owners of this garden we call planet earth, but rather we are the inheritors of a stewardship. We are not only to exercise dominion, we are also to exercise a stewardship-that means we understand that we will give an accounting for how we have used and not abused what the Lord has given us in this good creation," he continued.

"We should be for anything that will lead to an expansion and an abundance of human flourishing," Mohler said in concluding remarks regarding the issue, "But if this will come by new technologies, those new technologies will have to be premised upon the understanding that human beings are not the problem, but that indeed human beings will have to come up with these technologies."

However, many scientists and faith leaders disagree with the ongoing movement to direct countries into a common authoritative framework through environment-related regulations.

Michael Snyder of "The Economic Collapse" blog, said that earth's climate has changed throughout history and that what is witnessed since the beginning of industrial era has not impacted earth's environmental dynamics as significantly as is claimed by a vast proportion of climate scientists.

"There are some scientists that believe that we have entered a period of global warming, but there are other scientists that are extremely convincing that have numbers that seem to indicate that our planet is cooling. The science is very open to debate, but the global elite have latched on to the 'threat of climate change' as a way to promote their globalist agenda. Every solution that they seem to offer involves even more globalization, more centralization and more power in their own hands," Snyder was quoted as saying by the Charisma News.

End Times author Paul McGuire said that the climate change negotiations are "deliberate falsehoods designed to bring in a new world order and the world socialist government planned by what Aldous Huxley ... termed the scientific elite.. When I watch Christians, along with Christian leaders, praise Pope Francis over his climate agenda and for other things, a great sadness comes over my heart because I am witnessing a great spiritual seduction of God's people that is only possible because they have been deprived of the truth."

Many African nations had criticized an initial draft of the UN climate change agreement, saying that the conditions of the accord are akin to "apartheid" against developing nations.

The developing nations said their demands had been erased from the 20-page draft, according to the The Christian Science Monitor.

"It is just like apartheid," South Africa's delegate, Nozipho Joyce Mxakato-Diseko, who also represents more than 130 developing nations, said "We find ourselves in a position where in essence we are disenfranchised."