Olav Kjorven is director of the Bureau for Development Policy at the United Nations Development Programme and assistant secretary-general of UNDP.

In the opening keynote address of the WCC UN Advocacy Week on Monday, 16 November 2009, he said that "climate disruption" will continue unabated "unless governments can ramp up the courage to address it." He also told his listeners that religious groups around the world have yet to realize the real impact they could have on moving governments to address climate change immediately as well as other justice concerns.

"There is another simple fact," Kjorven said in his presentation. "You have an enormous economic clout as well that is too rarely recognized even amongst yourselves."

Lois Dauway, a member of the WCC Central Committee and Committees, serves the United Methodist Church as interim deputy general secretary for mission and evangelism in that church's General Board for Global Ministries.

Recognizing that the church has done many good things, she challenged the participants at the WCC UN Advocacy Week to do more. "If we in the churches are truly going to make a change in this world, we must realize that it takes more than eloquent resolutions and sermons on peace and justice," she said in a keynote address on 16 November 2009. It takes listening to those who suffer and joining with them, "sometimes leading, sometimes being led" and pooling the resources of the churches.

The Rev. Elenie Poulos is a Uniting Church minister in Australia and a member of the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.

"Are we ready to be the counter-culture church of our calling?" she asked, in preaching at the opening prayer service of the WCC United Nations Advocacy Week. In this interview, she explains how she understands this calling.

Peter Hans Emberson is the climate change campaigns officer of the Pacific Conference of Churches. In this interview he speaks about the situation of those Pacific Islands being submerged by raising ocean waters due to climate change and the fact that some people will become displaced.

"For most indigenous people the issue of land is something sacred and is inbuilt into their sense of identity and belonging." Therefore, explains Emberson, telling them that "Your land will be lost" means "challenging the very idea of how they conceive themselves to be - one with nature and one with God. So it's a very delicate discussion to begin but it needs to be started. And I think the church is in the best place to provide counsel and comfort and to journey with them."

Rev. Matheus Adadikam is a pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church in Tanah Papua and chairman of LPMAK, a local community development organization. In this interview he speaks about the situation of the indigenous peoples of West Papua and the role the church can plan in advocating for their rights.

As an indigenous Papuan, he felt strengthened and empowered by the experience, at the WCC UN Advocacy Week, to have brothers and sisters in many other countries, says the Rev. Matheus: "Many members of churches around the world will go on praying for us."