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COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh is over. Numerous reports have all pointed out that if we don't cut the emissions of greenhouse gases radically and immediately, we will not keep the global average temperature rise below 1.5 degrees. Therefore, the emissions must drastically decrease in the coming decades if we want to avoid severe consequences for our home, planet Earth.

As people of faith concerned about the climate crisis, there are two origin stories that may guide and concern us as we ponder how we ought to live in the world today. One is the Genesis story, which establishes our faith in the God of Creation, and our particular role in nature. Another, is the story that started years ago on the same soil and the same river where COP26 is taking place today.

Acknowledging the inspiration from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the recommendations of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Laudato Si’ Encyclical by Pope Francis, the ecumenical season of creation movement and the ecotheology and ECOTHEE Conferences and the corresponding Cretan appeals since 2009.

Human trafficking continues to remain one of the most grievous assaults on the fundamental rights and inherent dignity of people. The crime, also known as modern-day slavery, is dehumanising in the sense that it corrupts one’s identity as being made in the image of God, instead reducing one to a mere commodity or object.

Rev. Gloria Ulloa, World Council of Churches president for Latin America and the Caribbean, is in Cali, Colombia, with a delegation of DiPaz, the country’s main ecumenical peacebuilding platform. The group is having direct grassroots contact with the conflicts currently taking place. Ulloa and others hope to bring to light testimonies of peoples and communities usually forgotten by the big media.

Below is Ulloa's latest description on the ground.

Nigerians, like the rest of the world, have had to battle the threat of COVID-19 since the beginning of the year 2020.

In a time of a global pandemic that has killed almost 200,000 Americans, civil unrest in the streets, and an economy in tatters, I have been blessed with the opportunity to share my thoughts with you during this unique time in history. I decided to contribute to this blog in the form of a personal letter to each of you.

When the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, was recently admitted to hospital with COVID-19, spending a few days in intensive care, a number of British politicians and journalists talked about how the virus was the great leveller. Everyone from street cleaners to world leaders could get the disease; no-one was immune, therefore, we must all follow the same social distancing guidelines. But as Iñigo Aymar of Oxfam has pointed out, COVID-19 is not so much the great leveller, but the great revealer.

On 24th December 2018 I was on a long queue to the pay point in a supermarket in Malawi. It was a hot day. The lights went off. Everything was now processed manually. Being a day before Christmas holiday, the shop was full of people. I had been on the queue for 20 minutes. In front of me was a black Malawian man. The teller was also a black Malawian man. After the person in front of me was served, I put my items on the counter for payment. In a flash a young Indian girl cut the line in front of me and the teller served her.

The 16 days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence serve as a reminder to the world that such violence remains widespread. Women from diverse social, economic, political, religious and other backgrounds are vulnerable to violence. Sadly, religion has denied many women survivors of gender-based violence access to justice.

When I was asked to preach recently, it seemed obvious that I would speak about the visit of Pope Francis to Geneva in June at the invitation of the World Council of Churches. This would give me the opportunity to talk about ecumenism with people who might not be familiar with either the word or the concept. It would also be the chance to draw attention to the 70-year quest by the WCC for practical ecumenism, that is to say an ecumenism that is about Christians working together to love their neighbour and care for creation.

Off-again/on-again Trump-Kim summit cannot derail the peace train!

As the World Council of Churches pilgrim visit of justice and peace to South Sudan draws to a close, I’m struck by how several issues intersect and interact: the position of women, poverty, sexual exploitation, the prevalence of weapons, and the lack of safety.

When I was a young adult I visited the home of Mrs. Winnie Nomzamo Madikizela Mandela. I was blessed to meet her and a few of her family members. I also heard her speak at a program in Soweto. Since this time, I have come to a deeper understanding about her and the spouses of celebrated leaders. Too often their leadership is not only overlooked but not considered.

One of the most well known and remarkable personalities in the history of the ecumenical movement is Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. His name is forever carved into world history and into the history of the churches’ witness in the world. Today, 50 years after his assassination, he is honoured, and he is inspiring the churches worldwide to continue the work he was leading. His message should be both guiding us and disturbing us.

A Nobel Peace Prize ceremony’s greatest power may be that it enables unrealized truth to be told in a new light. The truth at issue has surely been spoken before, from shattered neighborhoods to the heights of power. Yet this Nobel award to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons enabled such truth to be spoken to an attentive mixed audience representing the street as well as the summit: Civil society campaigners, the diplomatic corps, nuclear-armed and nuclear-free; religious leaders; Norwegian society, a royal family in the front row; a worldwide audience.

“We are part of a struggle in defense of water, life, and mother earth,” people from the Peaceful Resistance Movement of La Puya told us. La Puya is a campsite at the entrance of the El Tambor gold mine in Guatemala, built by some local people five years ago after Kappes, Cassiday and Associates (KCA) – a U.S. based company, tried to bring in equipment to start mining.