WCC News: WCC decade links climate crisis and violent conflict

Climate action is a pathway to peace, not merely an environmental necessity. That was the central message Athena Peralta, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, brought to Hamburg, Germany, on 16–17 April, as she presented the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action at the conference "Ecology of Peace – Eco-Theological Perspectives in Times of Global Crisis," organized by the Academy for International Ecumenism at the University of Hamburg. 3 December 2023, Dubai, United Arab Emirates: 'Stop the wars, stop the warming,' reads a sign as people gather at the United Nations climate summit COP28 for an advocacy action undertaken by the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) to highlight the issue of militarism in relation to CO2 emmissions and the climate crisis.  Photo: LWF/Albin Hillert’ 22 April 2026 Peralta named the crisis plainly. "We are living in an age increasingly described as a poly-crisis, a convergence of multiple, interlocking emergencies that cannot be understood or addressed in isolation," she said. "Climate breakdown, widening inequality, and escalating violent conflict are not separate phenomena; they are deeply entangled, each intensifying the others. Amid these converging crises, climate action emerges not only as an environmental necessity, but as a pathway to peace." Rev. Prof. Dr Fernando Enns went further. A member of the WCC executive committee and representative of the Association of Mennonite Congregations in Germany, Enns challenged the theological establishment directly: church statements on peace, he argued, persistently neglect ecological dimensions despite clear evidence of a cycle in which ecological destruction feeds violent conflict, and conflict in turn deepens environmental collapse. Drawing on research by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute on Afghanistan (April 2026), he mapped how climate change exacerbates the dynamics of ongoing violence, weakens community resilience, and amplifies existing tensions. His conclusion was categorical: that climate change might yet prove to be the most radical theological teacher humanity has encountered, demanding a deeper understanding of God's shalom, the Hebrew vision of whole and flourishing peace, for all of creation. Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz argued that living nature holds rights and challenged the Global North, which has contributed most to emissions, to provide genuine compensation and restoration. He reframed the entire conversation: this is not climate change, he insisted, but an earth crisis. Peace, he added, is not the absence of conflict but the highest state of tension that an organism can creatively sustain its creative management, not its suppression. Caroline Kruckow of Brot für die Welt showed the connection in concrete terms, drawing on projects in Peru and Sudan where local mediators have helped communities restore both social cohesion and degraded land. Dr Brighton Katabaro introduced Agrartheology, a discipline that bridges eco-theology and agro-ecology by naming what he identified as the systematic separation of soil from soul. Prof. Dr Claudia Jahnel of the University of Hamburg presented the Evangelical Church in Germany's new position paper, anchoring an "ethics of enough" in spirituality. Maria, a theology student, said she found courage in the belief that there was still hope, that together, people could do something to counter the sometimes-depressing destruction of the Earth. She was one of many students whose attendance conference participants found heartening. Climate justice theology, the gathering concluded, is a spiritual matter. Its findings are to be published by the Academy for International Ecumenism and will be available as open access. Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Afghanistan (2026) Academy for International Ecumenism (in German) Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action Peace-building: Conflict transformation & Reconciliation 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 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland