ENI – World religious leaders who met in Sapporo, Japan, in advance of the summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations, which included Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, urged G8 countries to cut military spending to finance environmental protection measures.
"Massive defence expenditures, a global total of US$1.34 trillion in 2007 … both directly assaults the ecosystem and squanders monies that urgently need to be directed to sustainable development," the religious leaders said in their Call from Sapporo in early July.
The 100 delegates – of different faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Japan's Shintoism from more than 20 countries – said money saved through cuts in military budgets should be used for an Earth fund to protect the environment and combat poverty. They also called for the implementation of the UN Millennium Development Goals, which among other things, aim to halve global poverty by 2015.
