Worldwide prayer and fasting for Climate Talks

Westminster Pray and Fast group

Religious and lay groups from diverse communities all around the world are working and praying for the success of the 20th session of the UN Conference of Parties (COP 20) meeting in Lima, Peru, which began on Monday, 1 December.

Columban Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation (JPIC) worker in Lima, Laura Vargas, has been part of a group of women and men, including the Inter-religious Council of Peru and the Conference of Major Superiors, who are asking the negotiators to look beyond their own countries’ interests.

They believe that the life of the planet is in real danger, and point out that Peru’s Quelccaya ice cap, if it continues to melt at the current rate, will be gone by 2100.

Tens of thousands of people who rely on melt water for drinking water and electricity will be left high, dry, and in the dark. 39% of Peru’s mountain glaciers have already been lost. This is just one example. Other similar scenarios are being seen around the world. It is the poor who are already paying the highest price yet they have contributed the least to the problem.

Since late 2013, Laura Vargas along with other Peruvian Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Bahai’is have held a National Forum during World Interfaith Harmony Week. During 2014, they joined the monthly Lutheran World Federation’s Fast for Climate. They have also visited the embassies of developed countries, including Australia’s, to lobby for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Their group started with 60 participants and has grown to nearly 400.

In Australia, solidarity with Laura and her group prompted the Australian Columban JPIC team to join the Light for Lima prayer vigils to pray for the success of the COP 20 negotiations. In Sydney, on 2 December, the Columban Mission Institute and the Faith Ecology Network (FEN) were part of a Multifaith Prayer Vigil organised by ARRCC (Australian Religious Response to Climate Change). In the United States, too, Columban JPIC has participated in interfaith vigils and will be at a Wasdhington vigil on 7 December.

In Britain, Columban JPIC is participating in monthly prayer and fasting on the 1st of each month, leading up to December 2015, organised by the Westminster Justice and Peace Commission. The Commission has joined with all groups, of different faiths and backgrounds, who want to see an international agreement on the reduction of carbon emissions at the UN Paris Climate talks in December 2015. Throughout the coming year the Commission is supporting the World Council of Churches’ proposal to organise a ‘Pilgrimage to Paris’, both physically and symbolically in the quest for a safer, low-carbon society.

COP20 in Lima is hugely important. We need progress in Lima to move forward to a successful agreement in Paris in December next year. The last IPCC report, the voice of science, is unequivocal: immediate action is needed to keep global warming under 2°C by 2100.

The stakes are simply enormous: the future of mankind, a livable world for future generations, the very survival of those already affected by poverty, desertification and natural disasters. Courageous decisions need to be made and implemented without delay. Simply put, we need to turn away from fossil fuels and embrace low-carbon growth. It may sound hard, but green growth is the only real, sustainable growth.

The good news is that renewable energies are fast becoming affordable. And we can save billions if we stop wasting energy as we have been doing for too long. As UN Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon says, “there is no plan B, because there is no planet B”.

Updates on COP20 from Columban Sean McDonagh: www.columban.org.au/archives/features/2014/light-and-prayers-for-lima/challenges-faced-at-cop-20

Video link for Sean McDonagh speaking about Climate Change at a lobby of the British Parliament:
http://columban.org/462/columban-center-for-advocacy-and-outreach/ecology-climate-change/

Links:
www.prayandfastfortheclimate.org.uk/resources
www.ourvoices.net/organising a vigil
http://fastfortheclimate.org/en/