In a recent statement, religious leaders called for an ambitious climate agreement, reminding all governments to commit to emission cuts and climate risk reduction. They promised to continue working for climate justice, including divestment from fossil energy.
“It would be a scandal if the Climate Conference in Paris would not deliver what is needed,” said Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, during a public event in Lengerich, Germany on 13 October.
Christians need a "spirituality of resistance" to face oppression, violence and experiences of defeat, the WCC general secretary said in an address at Germany’s biggest Protestant gathering.
Humanity cannot ignore its responsibility for creation, the WCC general secretary, the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, has stated in Stuttgart during the German Protestant Kirchentag.
Churches and religious leaders are at the forefront of efforts to mobilize action for a legally binding agreement on world’s climate at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to be held in Paris at the end of 2015. The motivation of the WCC for its role in this arena is summarized in the title of its environmental programme: Care for Creation and Climate Justice.
The WCC general secretary extended greetings from the worldwide fellowship of churches to Archbishop Dr Antje Jackelén at her inauguration. Jackelén, born 1955 in Germany, was ordained in the Church of Sweden in 1980, and elected to be Sweden's first female archbishop in October 2013.
More than 400 representatives of German ecumenical groups attending an assembly in Mainz, Germany have affirmed their commitment to move forward in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace” – a call from the WCC 10th Assembly.
A statement issued at the WCC consultation calls on churches, governments and the United Nations to ensure universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene, while placing access to water prominently on their post-2015 agendas.
The WCC general secretary called diakonia an expression of faith that “embodies the signs of God’s reign and makes it visible in all experiences of hope amidst turmoil, in actions that heal and nurture people and relationships.”
In a talk during the German Protestant Kirchentag in Hamburg, the WCC general secretary stressed the leading role of churches worldwide in the process of establishing justice and an ecologically-friendly way of life.
The German Protestant aid agency Brot für die Welt has handed a steering wheel, symbol of its water campaign, over to the WCC, thus symbolically handing responsibility for this concern and a newly formed Ecumenical Water Network.
