We would like to draw your attention to an A Rocha-hosted conversation by Dr Rodel Lasco, A Rocha International Trustee and Director of the Oscar M Lopez Center. Rodel is a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), an expert on biodiversity, and a pastor.

“Our planetary life support systems are starting to fray under the weight of human activities. Come and hear Rodel’s appraisal of the current state of biodiversity globally, how we can respond with hopeful action, and the exciting plans for A Rocha’s growing presence in South East Asia.”

Time: 13.00 – 14.00 UTC | Date: 11 November 2024

Tickets (free! with an optional donation to A Rocha) are available here.

“There is increasing evidence we’ve now entered a period of global climate and ecological instability, just as scientists have been predicting for years. A few recent examples:

• World’s hottest day twice in one week:  The record for the hottest day worldwide was broken twice in a week – see more here. Many places have broken heat records, with temperatures over 52°C recorded in 2024 in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, USA. India also had an unbearable heatwave, killing dozens and with an unofficial 52.9C recorded in Delhi.
• Wildfires: in Alberta, Canada, a monster blaze with a wall of fire 100m tall  destroyed much of the town of Jasper – fire chiefs said they were powerless to stop it. in Western USA, high temperatures are causing multiple wildfires especially in California and in Oregon, where more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) have burned in less than a month.
• Typhoons, Cyclones & Hurricanes: Typhoon Gaemi killed dozens in Philippines, Taiwan and southern China, causing floods and landslides; The US Government NOAA predicted an 85% chance this year would see an above normal hurricane season, and already Hurricane Beryl has been the earliest ever Category 5 hurricane, causing devastation to Carriacou, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela.
• Droughts and Floods: Some places have suffered catastrophic droughts in 2024 including Southern Africa, countries around the Mediterranean and Black Sea, Brazil. Meanwhile, devastating floods have also affected Brazil, as well as Argentina, Uruguay, France, Germany, Oman, Afghanistan, Indonesia. In Papua New Guinea, thousands died in a landslide in Enga. The cause is disputed, with possible factors including heavy rainfall, deforestation due to gold mining, an earthquake, and climate change.

As Christians, we need to respond first with lament and prayer, holding the human and nonhuman victims of these disasters in God’s presence, and repenting for our own and our society’s burning of fossil fuels and the selfish, greedy lifestyles that underlie these disasters. We also need to seek wisdom from God’s word and God’s Spirit as we discern the ‘signs of the times’ as reported in the media. We should fact-check carefully and be careful not to fall into the traps of doom-mongering (it’s too late, don’t bother trying to do anything) or false hope (it’s not that bad. God or new technology will save us).

Then we need to act, examining our own lifestyles, challenging our churches, lobbying local and national governments, and doing whatever we can at a local level.”

Give his talk a listen, invite your friends to having this conversation and be welcome to let us know what you think!

LWCCN is excited to be a part of the Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP) at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 10-23rd.

CCOP is training the next generation of UN climate observers from a Christian and missional perspective before and during the conference. Participants will share CCOP credentials and gain access to the COP 29 conference grounds where you will be able to attend meetings, briefings, workshops and any events open to those with official observer status. 

Learn more and apply by 23 July 2024

Dates: Choose one; same program:

    Nov. 10-17 (or)                                  

    Nov. 15-23   

Location: Baku, Azerbaijan

Application deadline: July 23, 2024

Room & Board: lodging and breakfast provided at CCOP Base Camp, site to be announced.

Cost: $850 USD; participants are responsible for their own roundtrip travel. We have some scholarships available for those who require financial assistance to attend, particularly students and those from the Global South. We are still working to make the fee lower than the above-mentioned figure as much as possible, through our ongoing efforts of lodging selection and fundraising. We will announce the actual amount of the fee at the final stage of the application process when you confirm your participation at CCOP-2024, sometime in mid to late September.

We draw your attention to a wonderful resource on earthkeeping, a comprehensive essay by Paul Kunert, available for free digitally or to buy as a printed booklet here [at https://licc.org.uk/resources/jesus-died-to-save-the-planet/].

Paul is a businessman and chartered accountant, with many years’ experience in the electricity sector in Africa. By his own admission, for many years he’d seen climate change as a secondary issue for Christians, until the truth about ecological breakdown and God’s purposes in Christ for all creation dawned on him.

Paul’s essay is compelling and biblical. Chris Wright, of Langham International, says: “There is a prophetic, Jeremiah-like urgency to this essay, calling the church to wake up and get serious about this issue. But, also like Jeremiah, Paul Kunert calls for repentance and holds out hope.”

The new IPCCC Sixth Assessment Synthesis Report (from the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change) was released on March 20^th. The full report took 8 years, runs to 8,000 pages and involved over 780 scientists! Let’s break it down to make it easier to understand:

Chris Elisara writes (based on the 36 page Summary for Policymakers):

Note the “very high confidence” level of the scientific consensus of these findings. First the bad news: “Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health (very high confidence). There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all (very high confidence) … The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years” (IPCC, p.25)

While the time to act is fast running out before we are locked into higher levels of temperature increase with the worst possible outcomes for people and the planet, there is still hope if we can step up do what’s needed now. To quote the report again, “Deep, rapid and sustained mitigation and accelerated implementation of adaptation actions in this decade would reduce projected losses and damages for humans and ecosystems (very high confidence (p.27). Feasible, effective, and low-cost options for mitigation and adaptation are already available, with differences across systems and regions. (high confidence) (p.30, emphasis added.)

The good news is that we already have the technology and solutions we need at hand. The time to rally and use them is now.

To learn more about what LWCNN partners are saying about the report, read the related news items below:

• Katharine Hayhoe, WEA’s Climate Ambassador with a one minute video summary of the Synthesis Report. She also released a helpful summary on Twitter, including: “Our choices matter and the faster we act, the better off we will all be – all of us who call this planet home.”
• A Rocha International’s Response to the latest IPCC Report highlights the devastating reality and risks the report reveals, and that there are not one but three crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, poverty and inequality. A Rocha International emphasises that there is a ‘rapidly closing window of opportunity’ but if we act now, we can still secure a liveable, sustainable future for all.

There are 8 short questions that should take less than 5 minutes to answer. This survey is anonymous and you’re free to leave at any point (your responses will only be recorded if you click ‘submit’ at the bottom of the page).

The survey can be found here

It is now almost 3 years since we lost our dear brother, John Houghton. We have just learned of a tribute by his and our good friend Bob White that was published in The Royal Society several months ago.

The picture above is from the article – I daresay none of us have seen him this young. Following is a brief excerpt:

John Houghton made seminal contributions to understanding the temperature and structure of the stratosphere. After gaining the highest first in physics at Oxford, his DPhil involved building a radiometer that was flown in a post-war Mosquito. It started a long interest in developing instrumentation. He completed his National Service doing research into atmospheric composition at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, then returned to 21 years in Oxford. He led a team that, with others, built a series of instruments launched on Nimbus satellites during 1970 to 1978 to measure infrared radiation from the stratosphere. At age 48 he left academia to head up the Appleton Research Laboratories, tasked to move them to the Rutherford Laboratory and realign their work from upper atmospheric radio research to space support. Four years later he was appointed director general of the Meteorological Office. In his eight-year term, he moved it from dependence on the Ministry of Defence to becoming an independent agency, developed its commercial arm and strengthened its research. He also founded the Hadley Centre to work on climate-related issues. His most significant global contribution was helping to set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), then chairing its working group on scientific assessments through their first three reports during 1990 to 2001. After retirement he devoted his time to raising awareness of climate change through many lectures and articles, and co-founded the John Ray Initiative to address the challenges of sustainable development and environmental stewardship. Appropriately, the Sixth IPCC WG1 Assessment Report in August 2021 was dedicated posthumously to him.

…In 2007 the IPCC was announced as the joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Al Gore Jr. The citation stated it was ‘for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change’. John, along with a group of others from the IPCC, were delighted to attend the ceremony. It remained one of the highlights of his career, along with receiving the Japan Prize in the previous year. In August 2021, the sixth assessment report was released with a posthumous dedication to Sir John Houghton, a mark of the respect in which the scientific community held him.

Read the rest of the article here.

There were a number of Creation Care organizations present at COP27. Most of us, however, weren’t able to attend. The following follow up summaries are available – some are reports, some are links to post-COP webinars.

The Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP) sent out daily reports; all are accessible here if you want a day-by-day recap of what it was like to be at COP27. (Remember, this program is run every year – it’s not to early to let them know if you want to be part of the team for COP28… in Dubai!

It’s not a faith-based report, but EcoWatch has a good summary of the accomplishments and disappointments coming out of COP27 here. Also check the Guardian’s very good Explainer which outlines the outcomes from COP27.

If you’d like a video from someone who was there, check JRI’s President Mike Morecroft’s report here.

For a slightly different take, check out SAT-7’s COP27 reporting on this page. SAT-7 is a Middle East based Christian television outlet, and this reporting is helpfully geared toward that audience.

For regular updates, here are some of our partner organizations with the links to sign up:

TEARFUND – They will house COP27 information on their Climate Landing page (a good page to bookmark permanently!), and specific prayers for COP can be found here. If you still use Twitter in this Elon Musk era, Tearfund’s Action twitter feed is here.

CHRISTIAN CLIMATE OBSERVERS PROGRAM (CCOP): The Christian Climate Observers Program (CCOP) will bring a team of 36 emerging Christians leaders to the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt this November 7 – 19.  COP27 is the annual UN gathering where world leaders negotiate how to solve the climate crisis.  The CCOP is a mentoring and training program designed to empower Christian leaders to take the next step forward in climate advocacy within their spheres of influence.  You can follow along with what’s happening at the COP by signing up for their daily COP newsletter.  To learn more about CCOP you can visit the website: http://www.ccopclimate.org/.  Applications for next year CCOP cohort open June 1, 2023. 

Note: CCOP is a collaborative effort by mostly North American creation care organizations and Christian Universities.

CLIMATE INTERCESSORS: This group meets throughout the year for monthly online prayer meetings about the climate crisis. These folks have solved the time zone problem by holding each meeting four different times. Their next meeting is on Nov 8, and will focus on COP27. Here is their latest newsletter, and the schedule for the upcoming meeting is as follows. (These folks have solved the time zone problem by holding each meeting four different times – no excuses!):

Join our global zoom prayer meetings on
Tuesday, November 8

10h00 GMT (18h00 SGT; 21h00 AEDT: 23h00 NZDT)
13h00 GMT (8h00 EST; 5h00 PST; 21h00 SGT;  Wed: 24h00 AEDT)
20h00 GMT (15h00 EST; 12h00 PST;; Wed: 4h00 SGT; 7h00 AEDT)
20h00 EST (17h00 PST;; Wed: 1h00 GMT, 9h00 SGT; 12h00 AEDT)Zoom link for all meetings:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/3908003224
Meeting ID: 390 800 3224

And finally, the John Ray Initiative will be offering a post-COP webinar by their President and IPCC lead author Mike Morecroft at

8 – 9:30 pm UK time on November 17.

Registration is here (Free but the Zoom link only available after registering.) (Please note: as of this writing, just 29 places were still available. You have been warned!)