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The 5th Ecumenical Pilgrimage for Climate Justice from Poland to Glasgow crossed the English Channel from IJmuiden in the Netherlands to Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England on 11 October. They were given a warm welcome on site. 

“If we should be true to our faith, we cannot be quiet when we see what is happening,” reads the declaration of the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to the United Nations climate change summit COP25 taking place in Madrid, Spain, 2-13 December. “We are voices that are driven by hope and compassion. In a most urgent situation to bend the emissions down faith traditions must contribute to the urgent transformation.”

“God is never indifferent to climate change that weakens the already weakened, impoverished and scattered populations throughout our world,” said Rev. Dr Nestor Friedrich, from Brazil, as he delivered the sermon during an ecumenical prayer service held on 8 December, in the Spanish Evangelical Church, in Madrid, during the United Nations climate change summit COP25.

As he shared the perspective of an indigenous person at a side event during the 25th Conference of Parties (COP25) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Madrid, Rev. Glen Chebon Kernell, urged people to adopt a deep respect for Mother Earth.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) was represented at a gathering of more than 40 organizations from across Europe involved in the Blue Community initiative. Blue Communities, a concept founded by the Council of Canadians and the Blue Planet Project, recognize water and sanitation as human rights, promote public control over water resources and ban or phase out the sale of bottled water in public facilities and at events.

Representatives from multiple faith and religious backgrounds came together in Madrid, Spain on 1 December to find common ground in preparation for the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) 25 in Madrid, Spain.

Rev. Malcolm Damon, ecumenical champion of justice for the economy and the Earth, and a son of South Africa, passed away on 8 September.

Damon was a founding member of the Economic Justice Network formed in 1997 to serve the Fellowship of Christian Councils in Southern Africa, consisting of 12 national Christian councils in southern African nations. In 2001, he joined Economic Justice Network as its executive director. Under his leadership, the network became a leading advocate in the southern African region for a fairer global trading system, tax reform and climate justice.

“Multinational corporations have to pay their fair share of taxes or else we will have dug out all our copper and left a great hole in the ground for nothing”, stated Rev. Dr Suzanne Matale, from Zambia, during a workshop on just taxation and reparations held in Durban, South Africa, 16-20 March.

As bishops, women leaders and young leaders from the Anglican communion met in Hartebeespoort, South Africa, they issued a message titled “An Urgent Cry for Ecological Justice: Reclaiming the Gospel Imperative for All Creation.”

World Council of Churches (WCC) deputy general secretary Isabel Apawo Phiri offered a keynote speech on ecumenical diakonia during the Africa Diaconia and Development Conference.

The huge impacts of businesses on the communities in which they operate often bring benefits, but companies can disregard and even harm people’s rights in pursuit of economic gain. The WCC, ACT Alliance and the Lutheran World Federation hosted a side event at the 6th United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva on 28 November, in this context.

As the El Nino weather pattern challenges southern Africa, what is the role of churches in helping people realize their right to food and livelihood?

Faith campaigners have presented a total of 1,780,528 signatures gathered worldwide calling for decisive action to curb global warming. The petitions were delivered to leaders of the United Nations COP 21 climate conference beginning its work in Paris.

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.

Anglican and Reformed member churches of the WCC have taken significant new actions toward climate justice.

Although climate change is often thought of as something external to an individual person, it is interwoven with personal spirituality, as well. This was the conclusion of a panel of three faith leaders during a session at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change held on 22 September.

Inspired by the theme “pilgrimage of justice and peace”, the Central Committee of the WCC, a chief governing body of the Council, has set directions for the work of the Council from 2014 to 2017.

Church representatives at a recent Oikotree Global Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa stressed the need to support peoples'€™ movements promoting justice in the economy and ecology, a concern, they say, that lies at the heart of the faith.