WCC Feature: Faith bodies offer what Bonn talks lack: a voice for justice

In Bonn, negotiators wrestled with delayed adaptation targets and geopolitical tensions at the UN June Climate Meetings. The World Council of Churches (WCC) and partner faith networks gathered to do something the formal process has long struggled to sustain: speak plainly about justice. 21 November 2025, Belém, Brazil: A woman holds a sign reading 'Justice in Action' as civil society representatives rally for a 'Belém Action Mechanism for a Global Just Transition' outside one of the meeting rooms at the United Nations climate summit COP30 taking place in Belém, Brazil, on 10-21 November 2025, where ministerial discussions are ongoing about how to shape the final outcome text of the COP.  Photo: LWF/Albin Hillert 30 June 2026 At four events organised through the Interfaith Liaison Committee, the body coordinating faith engagement in UN climate negotiations, churches, Indigenous communities, and interfaith networks brought different questions to Bonn: ones grounded not in national interest, but in the wellbeing of all creation. The first gathering, the Interfaith Talanoa Dialogue on 8 June, drew 70 participants. Using the Talanoa methodology, built around three questions—Where are we? Where do we want to go? How do we get there?—participants from human rights, science, and Indigenous communities worked through the crisis together. “The Talanoa methodology offers a vital framework for navigating complexity in global negotiations... By fostering inclusive dialogue and systems thinking, Talanoa supports more coherent, just and transformative climate action in an interdependent world,” said Jamie Williams from Islamic Relief. Participants found emissions rising, fossil fuel dependence continuing, and trust in multilateral institutions declining, yet faith organisations, Indigenous peoples, and civil society have not stepped back. Their shared direction: a just transition that protects workers and communities from being left behind. A second gathering on 9 June surfaced a central tension: rising nationalism is fracturing the multilateral cooperation the climate emergency demands. Faith communities, which transcend national borders, are built to resist that fragmentation, but only if they refuse to subordinate themselves to national agendas. “What is too often prioritized in the negotiation rooms is money and power... As voices of faith, we are witness to the choice that one can speak for the sacred, where meaningful consensus could more easily be found,” said Lindsey Fielder Cook, Quaker United Nations Office. A side event on just transition framed the question as a human rights matter, with speakers from Tanzania, Panama, the Lutheran World Federation, Anglican Communion, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change sharing strategies for rights-based climate action. On 10 June, Rev. Henrik Grape WCC senior advisor for Care for Creation, Sustainability, and Climate Justice and Interfaith Liaison Committee co-chair, moderated a press conference with Brahma Kumaris, Soka Gakkai International, Christian Aid, and Franciscans International on faith and the ecological cost of running the economy as we do. “As churches, we are a fellowship beyond borders and national interests... We must stand up in protection of the most vulnerable, which includes people, planet and coming generations,” said Grape. The Interfaith Liaison Committee also held coordination meetings during SB64 to prepare a shared faith position ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, in November. Since the early 1990s, the WCC has stood in United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change rooms arguing that what is needed is not only better policy, but a different moral reckoning. At SB64, the Interfaith Liaison Committee gatherings gave that argument new voices and a shared map for the work ahead. UNFCCC SB64 closing statement (18 June 2026) WCC Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action WCC Care for Creation and Climate Justice programme  Understand a bit more  Talanoa methodology:  A Pacific dialogue practice structured around three questions: where are we, where do we want to go, and how do we get there? Introduced into UN climate negotiations at COP23 (Bonn, 2017) under Fiji's presidency, it builds shared understanding by centring storytelling and collective problem-solving rather than blame.   Just transition:  The principle that moving away from fossil fuels must protect the workers and communities whose livelihoods currently depend on those industries. A just transition invests in retraining, new industries, and community planning so that the shift to a low-carbon economy does not simply transfer the burden onto the already vulnerable. Interfaith Liaison Committee (ILC):  The body coordinating the engagement of the world's major faith traditions in UN climate negotiations. It organises parallel events during COP and subsidiary sessions, prepares shared statements, and gives faith communities a recognised channel for influencing the formal process. 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