Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) and Pentecostal Bishop Joseph Garlington of Covenant Church of Pittsburgh in Wilkinsburg, led the congregation in noon prayer, swaying together to the songs as they prayed aloud above the music.

Karen Phillips, an administrative assistant from Greensburg, told the congregation that she felt the history of conflict between many G-20 nations.

“Each one has built a wall. They know how to walk into a room and greet one another, but in their hearts, the walls are up,” she said. “I pray that true feelings and emotions will be exchanged, and that in that exchange there will be healing.”

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Love the comment about the parks–watch it all.

In rich countries, more than a third of all energy is used to heat, cool and light buildings, or used within buildings, efficiently or not. Climate change demands we slash that consumption.

That’s one reason why President Obama is hosting this week’s G-20 summit at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens — two buildings that are “gold” certified for their energy-efficiency design characteristics by the U.S. Green Buildings Council.

The venues are part of the message: investments in renovation and energy-aware construction can be a big part of a green jobs strategy. If the United States is to be a global competitor in green building technology, it needs to learn from some of the other countries that will be at the table in Pittsburgh.

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President Obama and the leaders of Britain and France will accuse Iran Friday of building a secret underground plant to manufacture nuclear fuel, saying it has hidden the covert operation from international weapons inspectors for years, according to senior administration officials.

The revelation, which the three leaders will make before the opening of the Group of 20 economic summit here, appears bound to add urgency to the diplomatic confrontation with Iran over its suspected ambitions to build a nuclear weapons capability. Mr. Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will demand that the country allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to conduct an immediate inspection of the facility, which is said to be 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

American officials say that they have been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project. On Monday, Iran wrote a brief, cryptic letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, saying that it now had a “pilot plant” under construction, whose existence it had never before revealed.

But President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said nothing about the plant during his visit this week to the United Nations, where he repeated his contention that Iran had cooperated fully with inspectors, and that allegations of a nuclear weapons program are fabrications.

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Standing in the lobby of a Downtown hotel, a key adviser to the U.S. delegation to the G-20 Summit promised an array of religious leaders that he would carry their concern for the poor into the economic conclave.

“We value your input and we know you hold us accountable,” said Michael Froman, dubbed the “sherpa,” after Himalayan mountain guides, because he leads the way to the summit. He is a deputy national security adviser specializing in global economics. “I appreciate your prayers. We will need them. This summit is about fixing financial systems … but also about addressing the needs of the most vulnerable.”

He cautioned the 30 religious leaders against expecting major new initiatives. He expects to focus on fixing “gaps in the infrastructure of how nations deal with crises,” he said. “I hope you will see that this is a meeting that advances the agenda we jointly care about. But it is one step in an ongoing crisis.”

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When world leaders gathered in April to coordinate action on the international economy, it was in shambles. Billions of dollars in government spending and financial bailouts later, it’s on the road to recovery.

The challenge facing leaders gathering here today for the third summit in less than a year is to stay the course rather than declare victory and reverse it, U.S. officials and outside experts say.

“Pittsburgh is not intended to be a victory lap,” says Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. “We may have come back from the brink, but I don’t think people are at all complacent about where we are.”

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