Recently, the base of public support for action on climate change broadened to embrace new politically important constituencies. The following are a few examples of constituencies that recently became active on the issue. 

3.1 RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

“…many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough.”
        - Rick Warren, Evangelical pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life

The faith community has long been motivated to take action on environmental issues based on a perceived dual responsibility to protect God’s creation and to protect the world’s poor.  As climate change is one of the greatest threats to the global environment and to the poorest regions of the world, the issue has received growing attention from religious leaders.

In 2006, Evangelical leaders took a strong step in continuing the work they began in 2002 to protect the Earth from climate change when they released a statement issued by a group of Evangelical leaders in February.  The Evangelical Climate Initiative promotes four claims:
•    Climate change is real;
•    The consequences of climate change will be significant, and will hit the poor the hardest;
•    Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem, and;
•    The need to act now is urgent; governments, businesses, churches, and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change – starting now. 

86 prominent leaders signed the statement, including the head of the Salvation Army, pastors of megachurches and presidents of several Evangelical colleges. The focus on global warming in the Evangelical community has even reached its upper echelon with Pat Robertson admitting on his television show, the 700 Club, that he has been “converted” and now believes that climate change is a serious problem that requires urgent action.

The engagement of the Evangelical community first gained national attention in 2002, when Rev. Jim Ball of the Evangelical Environmental Network started the “What Would Jesus Drive?” campaign and drove a hybrid vehicle across the country. That year Rev. Ball brought Rev. Rich Cizik, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, to Oxford, England to meet with Sir John Houghton, an evangelical and retired Oxford professor of atmospheric physics who was on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Cizik reports this was a life-changing moment.

In June 2004, at a meeting called by the Evangelical Environmental network, the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today, a group of Evangelical leaders, committed to “engage the evangelical community” on climate change and to produce a “consensus statement” within a year.  Not long thereafter, Christianity Today ran an editorial endorsing the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act.

In March 2005, more than 100 evangelical leaders attended briefings in Washington to learn more about global warming.  Many believe that the considerable political power of Evangelicals – seen as a pivotal group in the last presidential election—could significantly change the politics on global warming.⁵⁹

The Catholic Bishops are increasingly becoming involved in the issue of climate change.  In June 2001 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a joint statement calling for leaders to take steps now to mitigate the possible negative effects of climate change.  Specifically, the Conference supported strong U.S. leadership and advocated for greater assistance to developing nations and greater emphasis on energy conservation, development of renewable energy and assistance to workers displaced during a transition to a more benign energy production.  In 2004, the Conference jointly signed, with other major religious leaders and noted scientists, a statement calling for increased action to address the issue of climate change.  The Conference followed this with a letter from Cardinal McCarrick, Chairman of the Domestic Policy Committee, and Bishop John Ricard, Chairman of the International Policy Committee, to the U.S. Senate urging action to address climate change and specifically the needs of the poor.⁶⁰ In February 2006, following the release of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement reaffirming their commitment to climate change mitigation.

The Evangelicals and Catholics are the newest religious powerhouses to enter the climate change fight but they are certainly not alone. For many years the United Methodists, the National Council of Churches and the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, a formal alliance of major Judeo-Christian faith groups and denominations, have actively advocated for climate change solutions.  The most recent collaboration among these groups is a letter calling for U.S. action on addressing the growing problem of climate change and supporting the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act.  Signers of the letter include two Nobel laureates in science, and U.S. leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Evangelical, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Catholic, Jewish, and United Methodist faiths.⁶¹

 In addition, grassroots campaigns to educate the public about global warming are growing more prevalent among all faith groups.  In October 2006, 4,000 congregations of varied faiths across the U.S. showed educational films about global warming, including Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, HBO’s Too Hot Not To Handle, and an independent documentary entitled Lighten Up.⁶² The screenings, sponsored by Interfaith Power & Light, sought to educate, promote discussion, and inspire action in faith communities. 

3.2 STUDENT ACTIVISM

In addition to growing concern among faith communities, college campuses across the U.S. are also taking action on climate change.  The movement for clean energy on college campuses started with a few activists in 1990s.  Between 1997 and 2001, 4 colleges pledged to meet the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, but the movement did not gain nationwide participation until 2003. 

In 2003, a huge victory in the student-led movement for clean energy was achieved with the success of the “UC Go Solar” campaign.  The campaign, led by the California Student Sustainability Coalition and Greenpeace, resulted in adoption of clean energy policies by the University of California (UC) system.  The policies, which apply to the 10 UC campuses, include the use of 15percent renewable energy by 2005 and 20percent by 2017, as well as support for green buildings and conservation policies on campus.  In April 2004, 130 campus groups from the U.S. and Canada met on the first annual Fossil Fools Day to discuss strategies for clean energy campus campaigns.  Three months later, youth leaders from 16 clean energy and climate organizations met in Washington, DC and formed the Energy Action Coalition (EAC).  Today the EAC has over 30 member organizations and leads a project to achieve 100 percent clean energy on high school and college campuses across the U.S. and Canada.  The project, entitled the Campus Climate Challenge, now has 341 participating campuses and 47 challenge partner organizations.⁶³

Each year more campuses across the U.S. institute ambitious clean, renewable energy policies. Some examples include: 

•    Middlebury College in Vermont passed a resolution in 2004 to reduce campus emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012 with the goal of becoming carbon neutral.⁶⁴
•    University of Wisconsin student activists working with the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG) achieved success in 2006 when Governor Doyle of Wisconsin announced his five year plan to make four University of Wisconsin campuses energy independent with 100 percent of campus energy coming from clean sources like wind and solar.⁶⁵
•    In April 2006, American University students voted by two-thirds majority to approve a resolution that would require the school to purchase 50 percent of its energy from clean, renewable sources.⁶⁶
•    College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine became the first U.S. campus to pledge to have net zero carbon emissions through an uptake in renewable energy, energy efficiency and purchasing carbon offsets.

3.3 NATIONAL SCIENCE ACADEMIES CALL FOR ACTION

In June 2005, just prior to the G8 Summit, the national science academies of the G8 nations and Brazil, China and India, signed a statement on the global response to climate change.  The statement urges all nations to take prompt action to reduce the causes of climate change, adapt to its impacts and ensure that the issue is included in all relevant national and international strategies.  Specifically, the academies called on leaders at the Gleneagles G8 Summit to:

•    Acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing.
•    Launch an international study to explore scientifically informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed unacceptable.
•    Identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.
•    Recognize that delayed action will increase the risk of adverse environmental effects and will likely incur a greater cost.
•    Work with developing nations to build a scientific and technological capacity enabling them to develop innovative solutions to mitigate and adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.
•    Show leadership in developing and deploying clean energy technologies and approaches to energy efficiency.
•    Mobilize the science and technology community to enhance research and development efforts which can better inform climate change decisions.⁶⁷

3.4 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND CLIMATE CHANGE

“We are long past the point where global warming is considered a myth. We are seeing its effects all around us, especially in my hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana which is expected to experience an increased incidence of flooding that could potentially destabilize its economy and endangers its populace."
        Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) Chair, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, July 21, 2004⁶⁸

In 2002, a coalition of 28 U.S. environmental justice, climate justice, religious, policy and advocacy organizations called on the Bush administration and Congress to take action on global warming.  The coalition, which calls itself the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC), is seeking immediate and just steps on global warming policy that focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy and conservation policies while seeking equitable measures to protect and assist the communities most affected by warming.  Recent reports, such as one released in July 2004 by the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Redefining Progress, find that African Americans will bear a disproportional burden of the harm from climate change, despite being least responsible for the problem.⁶⁹

The EJCC created the Climate Justice Corps, a group of young activists who work in communities impacted by climate change and its sources to fight against the political and industrial causes of climate change.  In September of 2005, the Climate Justice Corps was featured at the Global Initiative Summit organized in New York by President Clinton.⁷⁰



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 ⁵⁹_{Laurie Goodstein,” Evangelical Leaders Swing Influence Behind Effort to combat global Warming”, New York Times, March 10, 2005.}
 
⁶⁰_{U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Global Climate Change, February 2005. http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/bkgrclimate605.htm.}
 
⁶¹_{The National Religious Partnership for the Environment,
The Climate Embraces Us All, May 2004, http://www.nrpe.org/issues/iair/air_interfaith01.htm}
  
⁶²_{Interfaith Power & Light Press Release, “Religions Unite Over Global Warming,” October 2, 2006. http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_43091.shtml}
  
⁶³_{Campus Climate Challenge, www.campusclimatechallenge.org}
  
⁶⁴_{Middlebury College, Carbon Reduction, http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/enviro/initiatives/carbon.htm}
  
⁶⁵_{WISPIRG, Recent News, “Governor Doyle Announces Massive Five-Year Energy Plan,” http://www.wispirgstudents.org/news/recent-news/governor-doyle-announces-massive-five-year-energy-plan}
  
⁶⁶_{It’s Getting Hot In Here, “American University Students Set Campus Clean Energy Revolution Into Motion,” http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/190}
 
⁶⁷_{National Academies of Science, Joint science adaemies’ statement: Global response to climate change, June 7, 2005, http://www.nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005-5.pdf.}
 
⁶⁸_{Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, “ Redefining Progress Media Release Groundbreaking Study of the Impact of Climate Change”, July 21, 2004, http://www.ejcc.org/Unequal_Burden.html.}
 
⁶⁹_{African Americans and Climate Change: An Unequal Burden.  Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, July 21, 2004.}

⁷⁰ _{Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, “The Climate Justice Corps honored at President Clinton’s New York Summit”, http://www.ejcc.org/cgi.html}