In this issue, we feature two thought-provoking pieces on COP29:

1. The first, by climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe. Katharine provides a summary of the outcomes and gaps at COP 29. She critically examines the balance between the bold pledges for coal phaseouts, and the frustrating lack of progress on fossil fuel commitments.

2. Then, news from Jocabed Solano, a theologian and activist, from the indigenous Gunadale natio in Panama. You would be familiar with Jocabed—we published her interview in relation to COP16 in our previous issue! She has shared this statement from the World Council of Churches on COP29.

Jocabed pictured here with Samuel Chiu (part of A Rocha Canada) at COP 29.

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.

This groundbreaking initiative, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust (TRT), is poised to harness the transformative potential of diverse faith traditions, collaborating with secular partners to champion urban development that fosters thriving communities for all. With urban populations projected to reach 68% of the global populace by 2050, the challenges and opportunities of urbanization are more crucial than ever. Faith for Cities aims to be a strategic initiative that provides a significant platform for the global Christian community to organize itself and impact the development of cities to ensure that they are environmentally sustainable, socially just, and conducive to human flourishing.

Elisara is leading a workshop on Faith for Cities on 5^th December at COP28. If interested and attending COP28 sign up to attend the workshop at the link on the Faith for Cities homepage, or click here.

We bring you news from our friends at Tearfund/Renew Our World! There is an exciting new resource, with our very own Revd Dr Dave Bookless as the lead author.

Note that they are looking for co-publishers in translating and publishing this for wider reach and use!

“We’re launching Making a World of Difference at COP. This is our resource for church leaders, giving a Christian understanding the climate crisis, the nature crisis, and the signs of the times. It’s short and accessible and we hope it helps equip church leaders in many places. The lead author is our Board member Revd Dr Dave Bookless, Director of Theology for A Rocha International and Catalyst for Creation Care for the Lausanne Movement, with contributions from over 20 others from around the world.

‘I love this booklet and warmly commend it for three reasons: first, it is short and very easy to read and get your head around; second, it keeps making you stop and think by asking searching questions again and again (ideal for church and student groups); and third, it combines great biblical teaching (that I wholly agree with!) with lively and inspiring examples from all round the world, to help you not just think again, but choose to go and do likewise.’

Chris Wright, Global Ambassador with the Langham Partnership

It will be available in English, and soon after in Croatian, French, Portuguese (with Brazilian and European versions), Spanish, and Thai, with a few more languages on the way after that. We’re looking for co-publishers interested in translating and publishing Making a World of Difference online, in print, or both, on a non-commercial basis. Please do get in touch if you might be interested. You can contact Ben Niblett at ben.niblett@tearfund.org”

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!)

If you are not yet familiar with the work of Climate Intercessors, we encourage you to check them out. They are “a global network of people whose prayers are as real and urgent as the climate crisis,” and they hold online prayer events on the 2nd Tuesday of every month, conveniently timed for different time zones around the world. Being convinced that for all of our activism, few of us pray as much as we should, this is an initiative we whole heartedly recommend.

In addition to the monthly prayer event, their monthly prayer reminder is a gem. Here’s a portion of the latest from Lowell Bliss:

Over a decade ago, I had a strange, but encouraging encounter with Scripture at the first faith-based conference on climate change that I had ever intended.  On the Thursday of the conference, during a coffee break, I was chatting with Allen Johnson, director of Christians for the Mountains, an organization engaged in the struggle to stop mountain top removal coal mining in Appalachia.  Allen was talking about the lack of alternative jobs for coal mining families in West Virginia, and then he said this—and it cut me to the quick— “So they have no other choice but to keep making bricks for Pharaoh.”  Allen was comparing his beloved Appalachians with the Israelites still in bondage in Egypt.  So much of the world—including our economies and many of our politicians—seem enslaved to the fossil fuel industry.

I woke up on Friday morning aware that our agenda for the conference that day was “Creating a Pathway for Mobilizing Christians for Climate Action.”   It was 2013, and in the U.S., we felt stymied.  I also woke up with Allen’s statement bouncing between my head and my heart.  As well, I woke up to my regular routine at the time—which was to grab my Bible (using the New Living Translation at the time) and do some reading which would include a randomly chosen psalm.  That day—randomly—I landed on Psalm 77.  The words Red Sea, Moses and Aaron jumped out at me.  So did that word “pathway”—the very thing we were looking for that day as a conference.  

When the Red Sea saw you, O God,
    its waters looked and trembled!
    The sea quaked to its very depths.
The clouds poured down rain;
    the thunder rumbled in the sky.
    Your arrows of lightning flashed.
Your thunder roared from the whirlwind;
    the lightning lit up the world!
    The earth trembled and shook.
Your road led through the sea,
    your pathway through the mighty waters—
    a pathway no one knew was there!
You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep,
    with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds (Ps 77:16-20, NLT)

Here are four quick thoughts on this passage:

1. The possessive pronoun for the pathway out of slavery, the pathway that delivers from violence, the pathway through trouble waters, refers to God.  It is “your” road, O God, which led Israel through the Red Sea.

2. And who is our God?  Our God is so mighty that when the Red Sea saw him, it trembled and quaked to its very depths.

3. And yet, God’s pathway is described as “a pathway no one knew was there!”  Whereas on that Friday morning, we climate activists may have used that phrase as lament and frustration, the psalmist here uses it for worship.  God sees and knows what is obscure to humankind.  He is never baffled.

4. But where do human leaders fit in?  The final verse begins with the pronoun “You.”  The psalmist is still speaking to God so this second-person pronoun refers to him and to his leadership–“You led your people along that road…” –but the sentence doesn’t end without mentioning Moses and Aaron and without conflating their labours with God’s: “You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.”   We co-shepherd.  We co-led.  This surely means that we never give up in searching out pathways, however obscure they might be to us.

One of the best comment pieces we have seen after the COP26 meetings in Glasgow last November comes from Kuki Rokhum who works with EFICOR in India. Kuki is a veteran COP-attender (unlike your editor, who has managed to not attend any COP meeting up to now!) and does a good job of expressing why, after so many conferences, she continues to be encouraged, particularly by the increasing (and increasingly visible) response of the church. (For a whole list of other evaluation articles, click here.)

Here is a portion of what she had to say (click here for the whole piece):

So why was this COP different and what gives me hope and why am I more hopeful?
The biggest difference this year was that it was a meeting that was organized in the midst of a global pandemic – a pandemic that has changed lives and obviously impacted the way in which COP was conducted and also dictated a lot of the logistics at the venue. The usual hub and noise of COP with civils society organisations actively engaged seemed to be missing to a certain extent. The ‘hybrid’ or exclusive online sessions meant that technology had to be of the highest quality and that many speakers and participants did not have to travel all the way to the venue thus avoiding even more carbon footprint.

This was also a different COP as the ‘world’ had an extra year to prepare for it as it was postponed from 2020. The biggest advantage of this was the anticipation and talk about COP26 on many media platforms before it happened. The social media world was inundated with posts about the event which was a welcome change to previous years where very little is known about the event at all in popular media…

In previous COPs, we had some Christian engagement – I remember addressing a group of church leaders at a church breakfast event in Lima talking about why we should be interested in the COP happening in their city, there were similar but small scale events in Paris and Bonn too. Glasgow was completely different. It was so encouraging to see Christian young people across the world and especially in the UK taking this up and making their voices heard…

I have had the privilege of speaking in churches or Christian events in previous COP venues. This was the first time that I found myself ‘extremely busy’ speaking at many church events speaking, leading prayers, joining in worship – all related to COP. And I was not the only speaker – there were several others who were equally or even busier than I was. When the team that I was travelling with arrived by train to Glasgow we arrived at St. George’s Tron church – right in the heart of the city. That church became a hub for so many services and events related to the COP. Most events fully booked! There were so many networks and groups working together to inform and engage with people from all over the world. It was exciting to see how much better we had become at working together. I am hopeful as there so many more churches who have realized that creation care is an issue of Christian discipleship and are committing and calling for more action.

Read the whole piece here.

Prayer Assignment  

• “Do two work together unless they have agreed to do so?” Amos 3:3 So often we imagine we can accomplish much on our own, yet God calls us to walk in unity and friendship. There is a lot of conversation about collaboration in COP26 – because they have found it works so much better to work together. Pray for humility to honour one another in those conversations as they work collaboratively towards improving people’s lives.   
•  “ … I have filled him with the Spirit of God and with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.” Exodus 31v3  (referring to Bezalel and Oholiab who collaborated on crafting the tabernacle of Moses) With so much of the detail still to be worked out and less than two days before the scheduled end of negotiations on Friday, teams will be working through the night again tonight to have agreed texts ready in the morning. Pray (again) for God’s purposes to be worked out and for Him to block the things that do not please Him.  

• “Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you in exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah 29:7  Cities can be exciting yet overwhelming. Most of the world’s population now live in built up areas. Thursday’s conversation is about how cities, regions and built up areas will collaborate towards climate action. God knows and has purposes for each city. Pray for those purposes to be released.   

Transportation Day (Catriona Jenkins, Kari Miller and Norman Wirzba)

Today is Transportation Day here at COP26. The importance of this theme cannot be emphasized enough; as much as 30% of greenhouse gases are produced by the transportation sector. Most people live within and depend upon a global economy in which products travel great distances by trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes to get to consumers. Very little that we buy is locally sourced or produced. This is why it is so important to build transportation networks that are good for the earth and good for communities.

The highlight of the day was to attend a discussion with Katharine Hayhoe and Pete Buttigieg. They began by speaking about how the infrastructure bill recently passed by the US Congress isn’t only good for the planet but good for families and communities at the same time. Clean energy vehicles reduce the pollution that is responsible for 9 million premature deaths. Improved neighborhood design with walkways, bike lanes, and public transport increases the quality of life people enjoy since they can exercise outdoors and have more opportunities for face to face contact. Why sit in a traffic jam when you can be listening to music, reading a book, or enjoying a conversation? Moreover, a just and clean transportation infrastructure can improve the quality of life for all people, especially those communities that have been consigned to live in toxic neighborhoods or in areas without green space. So much of our design of cities and farms has been made dependent on the hyper-mobility that is currently fueled by oil and gas. Clean fuels that drive our cars, buses, trains, ships, and airplanes will increase the quality of life of everyone, while also decreasing the amount of carbon we put into our atmosphere. If we think more carefully about transportation, we might even realize that our much-treasured mobility hasn’t been good for us or the earth.

Both Katharine and Pete were clear that their faith commitments are vital to the work they do in transportation and energy sectors. God commands us to look after those who are on the margins, who are oppressed, and who are the most vulnerable. We cannot do what God asks if we do not also look after and care for the neighbors we are called to love.