Fernanda Zúñiga Keim, Lutheran Church in Chile, recorded vlog for ACT as we continue to follow the climate negotiations happening this month online in preparation for COP26 in Glasgow later this year.  The English translation of her vlog is below:

According to the IPCC, climate change will not only affect the different regions of the world differently, but also the different generations and genders, and it is in this sense that the poorest population will be more affected by the consequences of climate change. And according to the United Nations, 70% of this population are women and a large percentage of them are young women, therefore climate change does have a gender and generational perspective, which is why I believe that it should be a priority in everything related to climate change.

I want the importance of ensuring gender justice in the climate field to be recognized, where the real impact of gender policy is seen, not only as those who suffer the consequences of the climate emergency, but also because gender does have a real impact on adaptation and mitigation measures. Women should not be included only because we are more vulnerable to the climate emergency, but because we bring different perspectives and experiences to the work.

Growing up in a faith community has allowed me to analyze and observe different aspects of climate change and how it affects people. For example, how there are communities that are not represented or how their voice is often minimized. In this sense, being part of a faith community has given me the duty to raise my voice for those who are most unprotected, it invites me to look out for those who need it most and has allowed me to find meaning in my work within the church, seeking to raise my voice for those who do not have the means to do so.

The ACT Palestine Forum has published the following statement on health care access to Gaza:

The ACT Palestine Forum is deeply concerned about the devastation caused by the recent military operations in the Gaza Strip. The loss of lives, displacement of tens of thousands of people, destruction of civilian buildings and healthcare infrastructure, deprivation of access to basic humanitarian needs including food, water and sanitation is unacceptable. The widespread trauma among all people, especially children, must be addressed.   

The healthcare system in Gaza has been already under pressure because of COVID-19. Closed checkpoints have hindered access to life-saving medical supplies, equipment and personnel. It is imperative to ensure that life-saving treatment for seriously ill patients can be delivered. This includes treatment for cancer patients from Gaza, who have been denied access for necessary treatment at hospitals in East Jerusalem. 

This week, the Augusta Victoria Hospital (AVH), a specialist hospital for advanced cancer treatment run by the Lutheran World Federation, a member of the ACT Alliance, planned an emergency oncology support mission to Gaza. Its staff were denied access by the Israeli Military Authority. The purpose of the mission was to provide support and consultations to cancer patients who could not get their medication on time due to the lengthy closure of the Erez Checkpoint caused by the recent hostilities on Gaza. 

This is unacceptable. These patients must be given permission to travel across the border or doctors allowed to administer treatment in Gaza. 

The ACT Palestine Forum condemns the denial of entry for medical and humanitarian professionals into Gaza. This contradicts key principles under international humanitarian law and international human rights laws. 

The ACT Palestine Forum calls upon 

• the Israeli government to allow humanitarian access for medical staff urgently needed for lifesaving and emergency assistance, including medicine for cancer treatment 
• the international community to take immediate action in support of a long-lasting solution to this conflict, which includes ending the military occupation and securing equal rights for all. 

ACT Palestine Forum 

The main objective of the ACT Palestine Forum (APF) is to increase the effectiveness and impact of the humanitarian assistance and development work being undertaken by members through improved coordination. In its joint advocacy on behalf of the members of the forum, the APF seeks to spread awareness of the humanitarian consequences of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to promote humanitarian access for goods, personnel and services. 

ACT Alliance 

The ACT Alliance is a global alliance of more than 140 churches and church affiliated organizations working together in 125 countries to create positive and sustainable change in the lives of poor and marginalised people regardless of their religion, politics, gender, sexual orientation, race or nationality in keeping with the highest international codes and standards. 

The UNFCCC climate negotiations started again on May 31, 2021 against a background of predicted forecasts that are not good, in fact, bad: 

• The World Meteorological Organization reports a 40% chance that global temperatures could reach 1.5 degrees C years sooner than the decade long timeframe given in 2018, and a 90% chance that they will exceed 2016 temperatures, the highest on record.
• The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center also reports that never in their history have they recorded more internally placed people than in 2020. We can expect the storms, floods, droughts, forest fires, hurricanes, heatwaves, disrupted cultivation and harvest cycles we have recently seen to intensify.
• Extreme weather now displaces more people than war or conflict. Climate change has disrupted food supply, and increased the number of people facing hunger, which had been falling for several years.  690 million were undernourished in 2019 but this could rise to 840 in less than a decade, based on current trends.  

Some bright spots have also emerged:  Last week, also, a Dutch court ordered Shell, one of the world’s largest oil companies, to cut carbon emissions from its oil and gas extraction by 45% by 2030, the first major judicial verdict of its kind.  On the same day, investors in Chevron mandated that the company cut its emissions.  Climate advocates and activists cheered, me included.  

These are positive steps, but they do not halt the pace of warming which outstrips original predictions.

ACT Alliance’s Climate Justice messaging about urgency and scaled up climate action now need to get through to the right people, at the right time.  Our team is therefore paying close attention to the talks currently underway.  We especially want to hear more how governments – from both developed and developing countries – plan to mitigate the destructive impact of climate change on specific groups or improve their resilience to it.

It’s only been one week so far, but already we have some cause to be worried.  In their opening comments, for example, few delegates included mention growing gender gaps, the needs or contributions of vulnerable or impoverished groups.  Some have questioned the full participation of civil society organizations in the discussions.  This was an inauspicious start. 

Negotiating an international treaty across 197 countries is inevitably a political and technical discussion.   But governments also have a moral, ethical and legal responsibility to fulfil obligations to their citizens, and safeguard rights. 

Evidence is increasing, for example, of the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and girls.  Vulnerability, risk, as well as the capacity to adapt to climate change are rooted in social codes often highly disadvantageous to women and girls, and very hard to change.  In some environments, it is men and boys who are more affected.

Research also shows that other groups are at risk of being disproportionately affected during rapid and slow onset climate change: migrants, refugees, people living in camps, indigenous, disabled, migrants, refugees, gender non-conforming fluid communities and LGBTQI.  

Communities that are historically vulnerable for social, cultural, political or economic reasons will need special protections and services to prevent a further downward slide into poverty or human rights abuses.  

These considerations must be incorporated across all national climate and adaptation plans but are often missing.

Governments can and must pay closer attention to the human dimension of climate change.  They can take steps to ensure broad consultation, participation from diverse sectors, invest in gender analysis and budgeting, research, and develop an evolving understanding of who is at risk, where, how and why.   They can promote gender transformative practices in adaptation and mitigation that respect human rights and build resilience from the ground up.  They can listen more to affected communities which often have their own solutions and just need technical and financial support to do so.   Scaled up climate finance from developed countries is critically needed to make this happen.

Promoting rights and equity is a win – win strategy.   Countries which have invested in gender equality and rights have better economic and environmental outcomes, and lower carbon footprints.  Equity is also better for business.

This human face is baked into the Paris Agreement, whose opening framework acknowledges that climate change is “a common concern of humankind”.   Articles 7.5 and 7.9 of the agreement call on parties to adopt participatory, transparent, gender-responsive approaches which protect vulnerable groups and communities, while preserving ecosystems, while Articles 8.4 and 11, 12, respectively, reference vulnerability, resilience, capacity building, public participation, and transparent, country owned processes.

As we enter week two, ACT Alliance will continue to remind government delegates of how climate justice can still be achieved.

Jasmine Huggins is Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer at Church World Service.  She covers climate and gender justice issues and is based in Washington D.C.

The UN climate summit (COP25) in Madrid ended on the 15th of December, 2019. At that time nobody knew it would be almost one and a half years until negotiations would continue. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only challenged people and communities around the world, it has also hindered important talks about the future of our species, and our planet. This week negotiations are back, and hopefully on track towards an ambitious outcome at the upcoming climate summit- COP26- in Glasgow, Scotland in November.

Since the summit in Madrid a number of worrying climate reports have been published. The latest, from the World Meteorological Organization, shows that the the global temperature may pass the critical 1.5 degree threshold already by 2026. That is horrific news as scientists predict that temperatures above this limit will have irreversible, dramatic effects on millions of poor and vulnerable communities around the world.

But we do not have to look at science to be alarmed. We can just look out the proverbial window. Since COP25 in Madrid, we have seen heat waves, devastating cyclones, droughts, flooding, forest fires, and melting glacial ice.

We have seen these climate related disasters, and people on the frontline of climate change have felt the effects on their bodies, and in their homes and their livelihoods. There is no doubt. The need for climate action has become even more urgent.

So, what can we expect from the UN negotiations? Will they provide the solutions we need? Well, negotiations right now will certainly not deliver the solutions. Because of the corona virus negotiations will, for the first time, take place online. This setting is uncertain, and it has been agreed that no formal decisions will be taken.

So no, negotiations right now will not provide solutions.

However, they will, or maybe I should say, could, pave the way, so that decisions and agreements can be formally reach at the summit in Scotland in November.

Negotiators will address a number of key topics, which all are important to address if we want to deal with the climate crisis we are facing: rules about climate finance, carbon trading, agriculture and the “global stock take” which is the five year ambitions mechanism in the Paris agreement, designed to ensure that ambition- and action- can be scaled up.

For poor and vulnerable communities, at the forefront of climate change, time is rapidly running out. Droughts and floods will continue to affect the most vulnerable, but without progress in the UN climate cooperation it is difficult to see how the global ambition will be scaled up.

I am happy UN talks about climate change are back, and I hope they will help us to get on track, towards the resilient and green transition we all need.

Mattias Söderberg, Senior advocacy advisor in DanChurchAid. Mattias serves as co-chair of the ACT Climate Justice Reference Group.

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, there is perhaps no greater issue facing humanity than the climate crisis.  Although each year, representatives of states, the private sector, and civil society gather at the UN Climate Conference known as COP to negotiate about the global response to this existential emergency, little progress has been made to address the root causes of climate change.

As part of the Global Prayer and Action Chain for Climate Justice, ACT Alliance helped host a webinar Raise your Voice in Faith for Climate Justice in mid-May which saw well over 100 people of faith from around the world gather to learn and chare together on how they can influence their countries’ contributions to COP26 later this year.

COP26 was scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November 2020, but was postponed by a year by the pandemic. An important part of nations leading to COP26 will be the ramping up of ambition in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the plans by each country of how they will decrease their emissions to reach the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C.

A wide variety of speakers from climate experts to archbishops to youth activists talked about the NDCs, the actions they take towards climate justice in their homes and churches and at the COPs.  Athena Peralta, programme executive for economic and ecological justice of the World Council of Churches, gave an overview of the current state of the NDCs in mid-2021 after a panel discussion on What are the NDCs and COP26 and why are they important? which featured climate activists from Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.

Archbishop Mark MacDonald, National Indigenous Bishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, talked about the experience of indigenous people. “There is no livable future of the planet in which Indigenous peoples’ rights are not respected,” he said. The fight for indigenous people’s authority over the mineral and other resources on their land is “one of the most effective ways of slowing down the greed that blinds people  to the rate of development that is destroying our planet.”

Bino Makhalanyane, youth coordinator at Green Anglicans, talked of how people of faith in Namibia stood up to a foreign extractive company in the Kavango Basin. After a local newspaper was sued for breaking the story about the oil drilling project, he explained, Anglican bishops around the world joined a campaign to stop the drilling. “We have seen media houses now amplifying this message, taking it out to the people… People should be given that opportunity to express themselves and not be frightened when they speak about what they believe is not correct.”

Helena Funk, a young Lutheran from Germany, spoke about her work in climate justice from COPs to engaging at the local parish. “I think it is very important to record what is happening at the UN climate conferences, and even what we are doing in our home churches for caring for the environment, to inspire more people and to gain attention to this topic,” she said.

The webinar wrapped up with break out groups on topics ranging from how to engage local churches in climate justice to how to organize a COVID-safe protest to effective use of media and social media, to engaging politicians.  These sessions presented concrete examples of how people of faith can get more involved in the global fight for climate justice at the local level. Notes from the break out groups will be shared on here, along with other materials from the webinar.

The Global Prayer and Action Chain for Climate Justice will continue to work to bring people of faith together towards COP26.  You can sign their petition to COP26 here, as well as other ways to act and pray for climate justice on their website.

The humanitarian situation of the Tigray region in Ethiopia is proving to be a real challenge for humanitarian international organizations and NGOs. Access remains unpredictable while the humanitarian needs are rising.

According to OCHA more than 2 million people have been displaced by the conflict and our Ethiopia Forum confirms that the number of IDPs is increasing steadily.

Food aid is the top priority at the moment. In Mekelle, the capital city of the Tigray region, churches and host communities are doing their best to accommodate the needs of those in need, but their efforts are not enough. Schools used as IDPs centres are packed with people who live on top of each other. This is concerning from a health and hygiene point of view, but it is also insufferable for those living there.

“There is no privacy and no dignity”, says Elizabeth Zimba, ACT Alliance’s Regional Representative for Africa.

The constant influx of IDPs from the rural areas, where the conflict is intense, to the urban areas poses a massive WASH challenge to the humanitarian relief operations. Water points have been damaged and need to be restored as a matter of urgency.

Transport of supplies, particularly from Addis, is difficult and complicated by the rainy season which is also a deterrent for IDPs to move to the resettlement camps.

To complicate matters further, elections are imminent, and this could negatively impact the humanitarian response and hinder access to the concerned areas even more.

ACT members are currently involved in providing cash transfers to thousands of IDPs along with food distribution, water, sanitation and hygiene, psychosocial support, and protection.  Protection remains a major area of concern in the region.  A key aspect of the protection work undertaken by members of ACT involves the prevention of gender-based violence.

ACT members the Ethiopia Evangelical Church of Mekane Yesus Development and Social Services Commission (DASSC) and Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) have provided training to IDP committees, elders and religious leaders on prevention of gender-based violence and how to protect IDPs and to support survivors of SGBV. Religious leaders, both in host communities and IDP communities, are sharing their learnings with their communities on issues related to SGBV.

ACT Alliance has launched an appeal in January 2021. The appeal is currently only 28% funded.

“It is imperative that we look at helping the Tigray region by financially supporting our appeal” says Niall ORouke, Head of Humanitarian Affairs at ACT Alliance. “The humanitarian needs are growing and we must scale up our response to help the millions of men, women and children who are in dire need, and restore their dignity and hope”.

The ACT Alliance, World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation, World Communion of Reformed Churches, Anglican Communion, World Methodist Council, Latin American Episcopal Council  and World Association for Christian Communication, in a letter sent 18 May, urged Colombian president Iván Duque Marquéz to stop the spiral of violence that is doing terrible harm to the civilian population.

“While we acknowledge that the government is dealing with a very complex situation, we believe the focus now must not be on repressing popular protests, but rather to listen to the people’s voices with empathy and without resorting to violence, and to begin to seriously address the root causes of the mass mobilisation of the Colombian people,” the letter reads.

Colombia has now entered a third week of national protests. More than 40 people have been killed, hundreds have gone missing and thousands have been injured as a result of the security response.

“We believe that as head of government you will call the Colombian authorities to remember and fulfil their primary responsibility which is the protection of the Colombian people,” reads the letter. “We pray that you will resist and reject the calls for more violence and greater use of force against activists.”

The signatories added that they will continue to monitor the situation in Colombia closely and with great concern, praying for a just and peaceful resolution to the current crisis, and remain committed to supporting dialogue between the different stakeholders as the only path to such a resolution.

“We look forward to your response, and wish you grace and peace in the fulfilment of your responsibilities,” the letter concludes.

Read the letter in English or Spanish.