Briefly noted

Half of U.S. evangelical Christians do not support government funding of faith-based organizations, a survey shows. Newly released data from the Baylor Religion Survey show that 50 percent of evangelicals and 65 percent of the total population think federal funding of religious organizations is inappropriate. About 26 percent of the total respondents surveyed said they are in favor of such funding. Byron Johnson, a sociology professor at Baylor University, said evangelicals’ views may be the product of misinformation and rumors about the requirements for getting faith-based grants.

A united Christian appeal by Caritas Internationalis and the All Africa Conference of Churches has called on industrialized nations to compensate poor countries for damage caused by high carbon emissions, which scientists and activists say are causing global warming. “We are urging delegates meeting here to agree there is an urgent need for industrialized nations and their corporations to compensate poor nations for the damage inflicted by current and historical emissions of carbon,” said a statement issued by the two groups at a conference this month in Nairobi, Kenya. Among the thousands of participants were representatives of 166 parties to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.