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Implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change sharpened discussion of the 2015 papal encyclical Laudato Si’ at a UN conference initiated by the Holy See and several permanent missions to the UN on 15 January in Geneva. Among the presenters were the president of the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, the apostolic nuncio to the United Nations and the WCC general secretary.

Edward Dommen has been honoured for writing A Peaceable Economy, his 2014 book on the potential for peacemaking through economics. The work appears in the Voices and Visions series of WCC Publications, the World Council of Churches book publishing programme.

As we mark World AIDS Day 2015, the World Council of Churches-Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (WCC-EAA) welcomes a license agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) for daclatasvir, an important direct acting antiviral that is proven to help cure multiple genotypes of the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

WCC Communication has put together a comprehensive kit to offer to the media. It highlights basic information about high-level church leaders and experts from every continent and from several partner organizations attending COP21 who are able to speak about climate change from the perspective of faith communities.

A new online collection of church and ecumenical statements on bioethics and biotechnology has been launched by the global ethics network Globethics.net, developed in collaboration with the World Council of Churches. The collection contains more than 250 documents from ecumenical organizations, and Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions.

During the 4th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights, the WCC, in collaboration with the ACT Alliance and Lutheran World Federation, organized a side-event on “Faith-based organizations’ contribution to the protection of communities’ land rights: lessons learnt and good practices from Africa, Asia and Latin America” at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.

"In COP21 we decide whether the glass is half full or half empty, but the glass must be transparent", tweeted climate activist Yeb Saño at the end of a day full of activities engaging leadership and staff members of the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation and ACT Alliance, at the Ecumenical Centre, in Geneva, Switzerland.

What is our call to respond to the global water crisis? In what way is our response different from other actors? To respond to these questions within a theological framework of water justice, the Ecumenical Water Network convened theologians from around the world at the Ecumenical Institute.

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.”

The Ecumenical Panel on a New International Financial and Economic Architecture has concluded its second meeting in Switzerland, developing advocacy strategies for churches to ensure economic justice and the ecological wellbeing of the communities they serve.

At the Second United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, human rights defenders from Colombia and Guatemala exposed degrading environmental, ecological, economic and social impacts on indigenous communities. These impacts are consequences of the projects run by multinational companies in a number of countries.

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 newly established ecumenical panel of economic experts seeks to develop advocacy strategies for churches working to realize ethical, just and sustainable systems of economics and finance.

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.