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Indigenous peoples have a role to play in the struggle against climate change, indigenous faith leaders said during a panel at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held at the Church Center for the United Nations in New York City.

Invoking prayers for creation, eco-justice and peace with the earth, Time for Creation, a Christian global event, is observed worldwide by many member churches of the WCC. This year, the Council has invited a focus on the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace” – a call issued by the WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea in 2013.

Amidst the reality of tensions often fueled by religions, a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish youth has formed a multi-faith community. As part of an interfaith summer course sponsored by the WCC, this community wants to work for the protection of creation – a concern they say is common to all faith traditions.

While churches around the world live in very different contexts and may be separated by different doctrinal teachings, they do have one concern in common: will planet earth still be a fit place for their children to live?

Lent, a season for prayers and reflections by Christians around the world, has become an opportunity for the churches to respond to climate change, an issue which deeply impacts the communities they serve.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

During 2014 the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey will be holding a number of seminars raising awareness on issues related to women’s concerns, justice and peace, ecology and Christian theology, interfaith relations and migrant churches.

Celebrating water as God’s creation and reflecting on challenges faced by people having inadequate access to this life-giving resource, members of churches in Onex, Switzerland, gathered together in Geneva. Their meeting was held beside a pond called Étang des Mouilles on the rainy Sunday morning of 15 September.

In a call to celebrate Time for Creation, Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, encouraged the churches to pay attention to the “human interventions impacting the ecological balance”.

A book launched in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last month reinforced debate on the theme of eco-theology in Latin America with a direct contribution from the WCC.

A seminar at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland gathered diverse reflections on eco-theology, care for the creation and climate change, and how to build a sustainable world. The contributors included Christian theologians and activists as well as youth.

At the recent World Social Forum, ecumenical voices warned about the grave consequences of extraction of natural resources and mining, which they say generate a tremendous amount of social and ecological debt.

Climate change is causing massive violations of human rights. This point was made at a side event on “human rights and climate change” during the 22nd session of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.

In La Paz, an ecumenical delegation delivered to Bolivian government officials a statement on ethical principles for a new global economic system. The statement was received by Bolivian minister of the presidency Juan Ramon Quintana at the government palace on 9 January.