By Nikolaos Asproulis
It is widely recognized that the Paris Agreement, the encyclical of Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015) the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the numerous international initiatives undertaken by His All-Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (organization of international conferences for the protection of the Amazon, the Black Sea, etc., the establishment of September 1st as a day of prayer for the protection of the environment, the Halki Summit series of workshops, and many other events and publications), widely known as the “Green Patriarch,” constitute a hopeful sign towards the impactful public awareness for the protection of the climate. The major Christian Churches and denominations as well as respected theologians have seriously begun to worry about the climate crisis and its impact on people’s daily lives. Global warming, heavy precipitation events, floods, increasing risk of forest fires, biodiversity loss, and sea pollution from plastics, or even quite dangerous pandemics such as Covid-19, are only some of the challenges that put in jeopardy the life of humanity and the very sustainability of the whole planet. Following this line, the European Green Deal-towards a climate neutral EU by 2050, recently issued by the European Commission, did not come out of the blue. On the contrary, it follows the long endeavor of European institutions to take the lead towards a deep transformation of our life by addressing the critical and timely thread of climate change. In doing so, the European Green Deal suggests certain transformative policies (modernization of the European economy, supplying clean and affordable energy, mobilizing industry for a clean economy, building in an energy and resource efficient way etc.) for a sustainable future, taking into account, at least in principle, to not leave someone behind (just transition).
