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At the 16-21 November United Nations Advocacy Week of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Christians from the Pacific islands have appealed for worldwide solidarity with regard to climate change, a question of life and death in their communities.

Straddling the equator in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Australia and Hawaii, is the small island country of Kiribati.  The vast majority of its 33 coral atolls never exceed three meters above sea level, making Kiribati's 94,000 inhabitants vulnerable to a rare danger: their country is sinking. Â

"As Christians, we are called to stand with those who are victims of oppression, poverty or violence," Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) programme on Public Witness said in advance of the WCC's United Nations Advocacy Week, 16 to 21 November in New York.

Not only the Pacific islands and their inhabitants, but also "the Northern circumpolar areas and the people living there are already suffering from the effects of the changing environment", according to the participants of a 28-30 October seminar organized by the Council of Christian Churches in the Barents Region. Â

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged the citizens of the world's more privileged nations to insist on emission cuts, in a video message that was recently posted on the online platform youtube.

The recently established Action by Churches Together (ACT) International Climate Change group held its first meeting at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, 18-19 September 2008.

The spiritual and moral dimension s of climate change are best shown by how it affects the poorest and most vulnerable, says the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in a message marking 1 September as a day of prayer for God's creation.

By Annegret Kapp (*)

By Jean Blaylock (*)

"Humanity unfortunately has transgressed the Divine command for the protection of creation", said the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in his message on World Environment Day today.  "We experience the results of this neglectful and avaricious behavior today, as weak-willed spectators of the repercussions of catastrophic climactic changes."

By Christian Johannessen (*)

"The ecumenical movement is only faithful to the Gospel, if it is a movement of hope confronting itself with the reality of the severe threats to life that people are facing in today's world", said the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia in Lunteren, the Netherlands, on Friday 11 April. Those threats include "the deadly scandal of poverty, diseases such as HIV and AIDS, the devastating and destructive consequences of climate change, and war - including the re-emerging danger of the use of nuclear weapons".

This year the World Water Day (22 March) falls on the Saturday before Easter (according to the calendar followed by Western churches). It also culminates the "Seven Weeks for Water" campaign by the Ecumenical Water Network.

In a wide ranging discussion at the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) the UN secretary general, H.E. Ban Ki-Moon and WCC general secretary, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia found agreement for the two world bodies to work more closely on several global issues, particularly climate change.

The World Council of Churches central committee issued a reminder on the pressing issue of climate change this week, urging member churches and others to "Be stewards of God's creation".

Societies must move away from "promoting endless growth and production of goods" as well as a "seemingly insatiable" consumption, says a statement presented today by the World Council of Churches to the plenary of high-level government representatives at the UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia. While "the poorer carry the burden of the irresponsible waste of resources, energy and extreme consumerism of the richer," the statement affirms, actions should be focused on resolving "the problems of the great majority of today's world population."

While negotiations at a key UN climate summit in Bali, Indonesia, seem trapped in a "vicious circle", ecumenical representatives struggle alongside civil society organizations to bring about a paradigm change.

The Kyoto Protocol is "an important step forward towards a just and sustainable global climate policy regime" and as such needs to be fully implemented, however "much more radical reductions [of greenhouse gas emissions] are urgently needed," the World Council of Churches (WCC) executive committee stated at its 25-28 September meeting in Etchmiadzin, Armenia.

By Fredrick Nzwili (*)

Focusing on how to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to real change in the lives of communities through new forms of development, a 12-15 April WCC/Christian Aid consultation in London worked to determine elements of a common platform for churches' involvement in the UNFCCC COP 13 climate change negotiations in Brazil next November-December.