COP 26: The Earth is the Lord’s

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 Rev. Vy Nguyen,  Executive Director for Week of Compassion (the relief, development, and refugee ministry for the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ) offers today’s reflection from the COP-26 summit in Scotland.  He is a member of IPL Board of Directors.

Here is an excerpt

The mission of Week of Compassion is to alleviate suffering, and it is becoming more and more apparent that a growing climate crisis causes significant suffering for God’s children around the world. That is why, along with our ecumenical and interfaith partners around the world, we are committed to supporting climate resilience programs. Where some of the world’s most vulnerable communities already struggle to survive under the burdens of a shifting environment, our combined efforts help provide hope and stability.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it,” the Psalmist proclaims. As global leaders and voices of faith continue to remind us, that is good news. In this moment, it is also a call to prayer, to care, and to action. We hold in prayer all those world leaders gathered in Glasgow for this timely and critical conversation on climate action, and we pray for all people of faith, around the world, who will work together in the season ahead to ensure the continued thriving of the earth.

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COP 26: A Path Forward in the Global Climate Crisis

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Interfaith Power & Light is showing up in a big way at the Glasgow Climate Talks! The organization has  faith leaders “on the ground” and working remotely. IPL executive director, Rev. Susan Susan Hendershot, will be writing regular blog posts from the COP 26 gathering. Here is an excerpt of her initial post.

“As I reflect on the idea of hope, I think about the very clear way that I felt it earlier today. I attended an Interfaith Prayer Vigil with IPL Board member Vy Nguyen and United Methodist representative John Hill in Glasgow’s George Square, where speakers from multiple spiritual traditions, including Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, and many others, led us in prayer and reflection from their tradition on care for Earth, our common home. Our traditions are different, and some would use this as a way to divide us. But it is in our solidarity, our common humanity, that we can make a path forward in this crisis. That is cause for hope.”

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Global Prayer for COP 26

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We, voices from faith communities across the world, join in prayer for meaningful decisions at the climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow.

We pray for courage and compassion to transform those human activities destroying nature and altering the climate system on which our lives depend.

We pray our hearts to reject fear and embrace love, hope and transformation for a more healthy, safe, clean and sustainable world. We pray for strength that our lives be patterns and examples.

We pray for protection of climate activists and environmental defenders, who often risk their health, if not their lives, to break silence.

We pray for protection of the poor and most vulnerable communities, those least responsible yet most affected by our insufficient climate action.

We pray that our leaders listen to grasp the urgency expressed, in the latest science, and to guide our economic systems to reject dependence on extraction, exploitation and accumulation through dispossession.

We pray for wisdom, courage and compassion in our climate negotiators, to find shared solutions together that honour needs of the poorest, while reflecting meaningful action from the richest and highest emitters.

We pray the developed countries will lead in greenhouse gas emissions and climate finance, as they promised in the Paris Agreement.

We pray leaders in all countries will do all they can to rapidly reduce extraction and burning of

fossil fuels, and promote sustainable economic, social and political systems to stabilize global temperature rise at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

We pray for an inclusive conference, in which the voices of the least powerful are heard alongside the most powerful.

We pray, in this pandemic time, that access to vaccines is a human right for all, and that delegates attending the COP remain healthy and covid-free.

Adapted from PRAYER BY LINDSEY FIELDER COOK, QUAKER

Australian Religious Response to Climate Change