The belief that people of faith have an obligation to make their voices heard in the fight against climate change was expressed during a webinar by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Presbyterians for Earth Care.
The provisional total for the 28th Conference on the Parties (COP28) suggests that 97,372 delegates registered to attend the summit in person. With a further 3,074 attending virtually, this takes the overall total to 100,446. These numbers easily make the Dubai event the largest COP in history. The first climate COP – held in Berlin in 1995 – had 3,969 delegates.
Among those nearly 100,000 delegates were four Presbyterians, including Alethia White, World Mission’s Co-Regional Liaison for Northern and Central Europe, for whom this event was a first. “Some of the most beautiful parts of COP for me was the way in which it is, in a lot of ways, a microcosm of the whole globe, really. And we are all here because we are committed to caring about this issue of climate change.”
A draft of the new commitments out of COP28 climate summit will not be enough on their own to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), as the UN climate conference in Dubai headed into the final phase this week.
Despite a commendable start of COP28 with the operationalization of the Loss and Damage Fund, the first week at COP28 ended Wednesday with a stall on some of the most critical issues.
