As the COP15 conference commenced its final week of negotiations, leaders of faith-based organizations took a hard look at the moral and human implications behind climate change response during a series of presentations on Monday.

"There is imminent danger, the threat is real and people are suffering already because of climate change and at its root climate change is a profound moral issue," said Joy Kennedy, a member o the World Council of Churches (WCC) Working Group on Climate Change.

"If we believe the planet is just a natural resource bank, there to be exploited, excavated, extracted, dumped on, then we will treat it that way," Kennedy continued, speaking to a group of over 140. "But if we believe we are part of a sacred creation dependent on its gifts for our very survival and for life, then human activity requires responsibility and we will act differently because we love and serve and protect our home."

"We need to find ways to replace greed with an economy of enough," she said.

Echoing Kennedy's remarks was Fr. Erny Gillen, president of Caritas Europa who said, "It is time we have the guts to name the problem. It is not sex, not money, not the poor. It is the rich."

"Let's make poverty history, but shouldn't we say let's make richness history, let's make greed history," he said.

Bringing a reality check to the stakes of the Copenhagen conference was the Rev. Tofiga Falani, a church leader from the island nation of Tuvalu whose low land levels - barely a meter above sea level - have put the country at the forefront of climate change threat.

"Our petition is that we want to survive," Falani pleaded, adding that the people of Tuvalu "are the people God created and placed on those small atolls in the South Pacific."

"The role of the church is to accommodate any issues that jeopardize the way forward for our people ... because the people are carrying God's image," he said.

Hopes for reaching a substantial agreement at Copenhagen began to fizzle on Wednesday as initiatives to nail down a solid text for world leaders' consideration reached a standstill.

Deadlocks released on Thursday at noon as delegates agreed to adopt a two track procedure for continuing talks, one on the Kyoto Protocol and another on the Climate Change Convention.

Leaders of developed nations have expressed persistence on reaching an agreement at the conference, while representatives from developed countries have been less enthusiastic, expressing concerns about the effects a "bad" deal could have on their countries.

"No deal is better than to have a bad deal, particularly for Africa," Kamel Djemouai, an envoy for Algeria and spokesman for 53 African nations told Bloomberg. "To get to a bad deal with our heads of state here is quite difficult for anybody to accept here."