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As organizations worldwide intensify their work on issues of climate justice, and the clock is ticking for new climate commitments to take shape, members of the WCC Working Group on Climate Change have gathered for a four-day meeting to strategize for effective climate justice action and for strong participation of faith-based initiatives at COP21.

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.

An independent commission on international tax reform initiated by a coalition of organizations including the WCC is calling for an overhaul of the global taxation system to alleviate poverty in developing nations including the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A major conference on peace and security in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), convened by the WCC, began on Wednesday its search for solutions to the DRC’s steepest challenges.

Four weeks of negotiations on nuclear weapons came to a close on Friday 22 May, as the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended without a formal agreement. Despite the outcome, a bright new prospect towards a world without nuclear weapons has emerged in the form of a Humanitarian Pledge, now endorsed by 107 states, which promises “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the WCC, and Dr Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, discussed possible collaborative actions to end extreme poverty during a meeting in Washington, D.C., on 4 May.

“Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the values upheld by our respective faith traditions”, representatives of some 50 Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish organizations said on 1 May. The inter-religious statement came in a joint call to the 191 governments participating in the world’s largest disarmament treaty. The call, co-sponsored by the WCC, was made during civil society presentations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City.

Amidst intimidation, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and killings in Tanah Papua resulting from tensions between the Indonesian authorities and the Papuan pro-liberation groups, churches seek justice, peace, dignity and security for the Papuans.

“The increased interest of corporate organizations in the World Water Forum has a tendency to discourage civil society’s participation in addressing the water crisis,” said Dinesh Suna, coordinator of the Ecumenical Water Network of the WCC upon his return from the 7th World Water Forum, which concluded on 17 April in Daegu and Gyeongbuk, Republic of Korea.

Two new interactive websites have been launched by the WCC in order to promote strong engagement of churches with the vision of a “pilgrimage of justice and peace”.

A message of achieving human dignity, and the right to hope, in a world threatened by climate change was proclaimed on 28 April by WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in a meeting convened on climate change by the Vatican.

The WCC general secretary has sent a letter to the President of the Republic of Indonesia H. E. Joko Widodo appealing for clemency for the 10 death row prisoners scheduled for imminent execution in Indonesia.

The prospect of armed robots taking human lives, and whether to ban autonomous weapons before they are made, concentrated the minds of governmental and non-governmental delegates at a United Nations forum in Geneva in mid-April.

As part of churches’ on-going struggles for climate justice, the campaign Act Now for Climate Justice was launched at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland on Earth Day.

Leaders and representatives from the Cuban Council of Churches, the Latin American Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches USA and the WCC have spoken out together on the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States.

The WCC has joined over 30 leaders from major world religions and heads of global faith-based organizations today in launching a call to action to end extreme poverty by 2030, a goal shared with the World Bank Group.

Should robots make life and death decisions? Religious leaders are asked to tell governments “Never”.

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

The social and ecological cost of expanding mineral exploration and extraction was highlighted by churches at the World Social Forum.