Stockholm - Climate issues including how to tackle global warming were to top discussions at a gathering of some 30 religious leaders and policy-makers from various faiths of the world, Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd said Friday. The two-day meeting was to adopt a manifesto that contains "demands and commitments," Wejryd said of the envisaged document to be signed November 28 in Uppsala, north of Stockholm.
"We call on international policy- and decision-makers to take certain steps and we also call upon our own faiths to be active," he said of the tract.
"The basic tone of the manifesto is that of wonder and awe of nature and the environment that we live in. To realize what an enormous gift we have been given," Wejryd, head of the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran church, added.
The Interfaith Climate Manifesto was scheduled to be presented to various governments and at international gatherings in the run-up to a United Nations climate conference to be hosted in Denmark in 2009 for a post-Kyoto agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Wejryd said one reason for organizing the gathering was that he was "afraid of fear," adding that when "more and more people" realize how close we live to "the limits of this environment" this might "create a sense of fear that would block us from doing sensible and wise things."
He also expressed "fear" of the overuse of "non-renewable resources" and said there was need to restore the perspective of "stewarding" for future generations.
Another factor was a wish to encourage political decision-makers who had the courage to think in the long-term perspective, both in western-style democracies and other forms of government.
Among religious leaders and thinkers due to attend the parley were: The grand mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Badr al-Hassoun; the Anglican bishop of London, Richard Chartres; Professor Liu Xiaogan of the Chinese University of Hong Kong who is a Daoist; Metropolitan John of Pergamon of Greece, one of two representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; Dutch Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, as well as Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist scholars and Native American Indian leaders.
European Union Commissioner Margot Wallstrom was also scheduled to attend the meeting, project leader Ann-Christine Jarl said.
The pope had been contacted and "was very positive," although no formal representative of the Roman Catholic church was to sign the manifesto, Wejryd said.
Wejryd described himself as a "technical optimist" and was confident that "new technical solutions" would be discovered in future, for instance to harness solar energy.
In connection with the meeting, some 50 seminars and lectures were to be held on issues like climate change and conflict, sustainable environment, and how different faith traditions view climate change.
Some 80 per cent of Sweden's 9 million people belong to the Church of Sweden that was separated from the state in January 2000 making it a "faith-community" along with other denominations like the Pentecostals, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims.
