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.”
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.
Amidst the wrap-up of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches Thursday, Dr. Dianna Wright took the time to reflect on the gathering in Karlsruhe, Germany, of 352 member churches.
Wednesday’s virtual journey to Guatemala carried this title: “Confronting Climate Change with Actions of Hope.” The webinar, attended by more than 100 people, featured Bible study by The Rev. Dr. Karla Koll, a mission co-worker and professor of history, mission and religion at the Latin American Biblical University, an ecumenical institution in San Jose, Costa Rica.
In honor of Earth Week, global partner CEDEPCA (the Protestant Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America) is hosting an upcoming virtual journey to Guatemala which will offer a theological framing of the climate crisis.
On the eve of a United Nations report released Monday that predicts dire and nearly immediate consequences to human health and safety due to global warming, the Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II told the Presbyterians for Earth Care conference Sunday that it’s high time we started treating the Earth in a way that’s more respectful of the God of life, “who tapped us on the shoulder this morning and breathed another breath of life on us.”
When discussing the issue of forced migration, we see images in the U.S. of violence and economic inequality in Central America, South America and parts of the Middle East.
In recent months, the world’s attention has focused on the Amazon rainforest, widely considered to be one of the most important lungs of planet Earth. Covering parts of nine countries in South America, this vast and incredibly diverse region both traps carbon dioxide that leads to global warming and creates the oxygen vital to many forms of life.
