WCC NEWS: With pointed urgency, faiths rise for climate justice

The World Council of Churches (WCC) joined grassroots religious activists, high-level faith leaders that issued ten demands and condemned inadequate progress by governments and financial institutions. Photo: GreenFaith International Network 17 March 2021 More than 400 grassroots religious actions in 43 countries, thousands of people of faith called on political and financial leaders to meet a series of ambitious climate demands at COP26. Held on 11 March, a multi-faith climate day of action was co-sponsored by over 120 religious groups.   Alarmed by the massive gap between what is required to limit global temperature rise and actual climate change commitments by governments and financial institutions, grassroots religious activists released a set of powerful demands for world leaders to address the injustice and impacts that the climate crisis is inflicting on communities worldwide.   The statement calls on governments and banks immediately to end their support for new fossil fuel infrastructure and tropical deforestation, to commit to universal access to clean and affordable energy, to enact policies creating green jobs and a just transition for impacted workers and communities, to secure policies and funding supporting those forced to migrate due to climate impacts, and more.    Members of the Greenfaith International Network noted that as the COVID-19 pandemic has cost millions of people their jobs and their health, the fossil fuel industry has secured billions of dollars of emergency bailout funding while lobbying to weaken climate and environmental protections. In addition, during the past year in Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, home to the world’s largest tropical rainforests, governments have actually made it easier for agribusinesses to accelerate logging.    The full text of the statement and ten demands are available here See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 350 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC acting general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Ioan Sauca, from the Orthodox Church in Romania. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney Geneve 2 1211 Switzerland