Rev. Bruce Sanguin is participating in the Fast for Courage at Copenhagen.

Rev. Bruce Sanguin is calling it a “Gandhian gesture”.

Beginning next week, the Vancouver-based United Church of Canada minister and his congregation will help coordinate a local rotating fast for climate-change action. They are pushing for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minority Conservative government to seek aggressive reduction targets for greenhouse-gas emissions while at the Copenhagen climate talks, which start on Monday (December 7).

Sanguin told the Georgia Straight he got involved because humans are functioning “as though we’re the exceptional species that has a right to colonize the planet”.

“In the process, we’re burning down the natural capital in a frenzy of overproduction and overconsumption,” Sanguin, who preaches at the Canadian Memorial United Church, said by phone. “And it’s because we don’t right now know who we are, because we don’t experience ourselves as deeply embedded in a larger planetary system.”

On Monday, the Fast for Courage at Copenhagen will begin at the church, which is located at 1825 West 16th Avenue. It will keep rolling until December 18, according to the event’s Facebook page. According to a flyer, organizers invite people to participate in the fast for one day or a week, meditate, “be mindful of your planetary footprint”, and write to their MPs.

Sanguin said he got the idea to start a Vancouver event when Calgary-based former United Church of Canada moderator Rev. Bill Phipps announced he was planning to fast during the first seven days of the Copenhagen talks. Another colleague, Rev. Russell Daye in Halifax, said he would do something in Nova Scotia’s capital. Other groups endorsing the event are Be the Change Earth Alliance, Faith & the Common Good, and Voters Taking Action on Climate Change.

Sanguin called what Harper has done so far “fairly pathetic”.

“I’m hoping, and we’re hoping, that this can make a little bit of a difference,” Sanguin said. “I’ll tell you, for me, personally, it’s just an alternative to growing disenchantment and cynicism in what I regard as a kind of lack of leadership around this particular issue.”

Mayor Gregor Robertson will attend the Copenhagen talks along with his fellow mayors from Calgary, Toronto, and Montreal. Robertson spoke to the Straight from his office on November 26, the day Harper announced his intention to attend the talks.

“I was surprised he hadn’t made that commitment long ago, in that he waited for [U.S. president Barack] Obama’s lead to opt in, but it reflects the overall lack of leadership on climate that Canada has demonstrated in recent years, which is deplorable,” Robertson said.

Obama has pledged the U.S. will cut emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice are targeting a cut in Canada of 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020.

Robertson said Canada, and Vancouver, must look at a 25-percent emissions cut below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid condemning future generations to environmental catastrophe.