China and climate change

September 22, 2025

Stewart Sweeney’s article is very helpful for understanding China’s role in furthering global responses to climate change. And I’d like to submit the following as an addendum pathway to a further deep appreciation for action in relation to Chinese participation in those responses.

China amended its “Constitution” (about 2018) to include therein a policy objective of aiming for itself as an “ecological civilisation”. And partly in pursuance of this objective, it entertains frequent and widespread conferences attended by hundreds of participants in various parts of the country.

These conferences are arranged and presented under the auspices of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology – and if readers are worried by the notion of a religious dimension, they need not be. The Yale Forum is a deeply committed initiative, deriving from great universe historians such as the late Thomas Berry and today, Mary Elizabeth Tucker and John Grim.

Their studies and actions promote the notion of an environmental civilisation (sometimes discussed also as “an ecozoic era” in which humans and the rest of nature can exist in mutually enhanced ways). If only we here could see the notion of “Western Civilisation” dropped from our pursued objectives and replaced by a broader ecological perspective!