After days of long, intense marathon sessions of negotiation, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP29) concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning in Baku, Azerbaijan. The negotiated outcomes included a new $300 billion international climate finance goal, known as the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG).
Praying for world peace and an end to the suffering of colonized people, the Presbyterian Ministry at the United States led the midweek service of the Presbyterian Mission Agency on the eve of UN Day.
After casting your ballot on Nov. 5, you’re invited to join the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) for an online prayer vigil to help relieve anxiety, create a sense of community and be unified in Christ.
Against the African beats of 2020’s global anthem “Jerusalema,” with the lyrics in Zulu language, “Jerusalema ikhaya lami Ngilondoloze Uhambe nami,” which translates to “Jerusalem, my home, Save me! Join me. Don’t leave me here,” the Ecumenical Women’s daily worship service at the 68th Commission on the Status of Women began in Tillman Chapel Tuesday in the Church Center for the United Nations.
Empowering women and tackling poverty will be at the top of the agenda as a joint delegation of about 50 people from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Presbyterian Women (PW) heads to New York to take part in activities surrounding the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68).
Along with a group of ecumenical partners, a delegation of PC(USA) associates met with a Cuban delegation at the United Nations 78th General Assembly High Level Week to discuss topics that included economic sanctions, climate change, and how to deepen the partnership between PC(USA) and its sister church the Iglesia Presbiteriana — Reformada en Cuba — the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba (IPRC). The Cuban delegation included President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the foreign minister, and the Cuban ambassadors to the United States and the UN.
The trauma and heartbreak of the Korean War continues to linger many decades after the signing of an agreement to end active military fighting on the Korean Peninsula.
A delegation from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is present this week as world leaders, such as U.S. President Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, attend the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
In the past several months, Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations has been leading peacemaking efforts in Israel-Palestine, the Korean Peninsula, and Sudan and South Sudan at the U.N. Some of these conflicts have been around as long as the United Nations has been in existence and appear intractable. Others are new, such as the war in Ukraine, as we note with concern the rising levels of political instability around the world. Peace is fragile, and justice is hard-won.
As the 67th Commission on the Status of Women came to a close earlier this month, a list of Draft Agreed Conclusions was adopted following a lengthy session that stretched into the early morning hours of March 18, said Sue Rheem, Representative to the United Nations and Director of the Presbyterian Ministry at the UN.
