The Prayers of COP 25

The Strong Finish Prayer

O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

This is a prayer of a strong finish that yields a strong beginning. We appeal to the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all creation to deliver COP25 from a failure that we and our neighbors in this world can no longer afford.

May the negotiating nations finish the work of the final days of COP25 in such a just, merciful, and humble way that the year 2020 is rendered free and serious.

May the run-up to next year’s COP26 be freed up, without distraction, to be focussed on an ambitious ramping up of the emission reductions (NDCs) which will finally MATCH, not simply approximate, what scientists tell us can prevent the warming that will surely cause our worst suffering.

May a strong finish at COP25 send a signal that the governments of the world are serious about the Paris Agreement, that they have listened to the voices of our youth, our indigenous neighbors, our Pacific Island neighbors, indeed all our neighbors. Lord God, may they send the signal that next year’s COP26 is not some false hope, not some promise kicked down the road one more year, not some deus ex machina ready to save us in November, 2020—but instead that the next eleven months will be spent with the eye kept firmly on the prize: the promotion of the Common Good through serious and cooperative effort.

Creator God, at this moment at COP25, we feel like we are asking for a miracle, and so that is why we have come to you. We believe you are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us. We say NOW, NOW, NOW to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

In and with the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

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Una oración Final 


Oh Dios y Padre de nuestro Señor Jesucristo

Esta es una oración de un buen final.  Apelamos al Creador, Sustentador y Redentor de toda la creación para evitar un fracaso de los objetivos de la COP25 que nosotros y nuestros vecinos en este mundo ya no podemos permitir. 

Oremos por que las naciones negociadoras finalicen la labor de este último día de la COP25 de una manera tan justa, misericordiosa y humilde que conduzca a buenos resultados para el año 2020.

Oremos por el período previo a la COP26 que se realizará el próximo año. Que sea un proceso sin distracciones, para centrarse en un ambicioso aumento de las reducciones de emisiones (NCC) que supere las expectativas, y evite grandes desastres por el calentamiento global.

Que un buen final de la COP25 envíe una señal positiva de que los gobiernos del mundo toman en serio el Acuerdo de París, que han escuchado las voces de nuestros jóvenes, nuestros hermanos indígenas y de las islas del Pacífico, de hecho todos nuestros hermanos.  Señor Dios, que esto envíe un mensaje claro de que la COP26 del año entrante no será tiempo perdido.

Dios Creador, en este momento en la COP25, sentimos que estamos pidiendo un milagro, y por eso venimos a ti.  Creemos que eres capaz de hacer inconmensurablemente más de lo que pedimos o imaginamos, de acuerdo con tu poder.  ¡Que tu nombre sea bendecido a lo largo de todas las generaciones, por siempre y para siempre, Amén!

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Collected Prayers from CCOP Newsletters

COP25 Climate Negotiations: 

• Please pray that the government negotiators at COP25 will renew their commitment to the Paris Agreement, and work with a spirit of cooperation for the common good of all nations on this planet.

• Pray for the indigenous and youth leaders stepping into the vacuum of moral leadership on the climate crisis. Pray for their wisdom and strength, for their voice to be loud and their cry powerful, and for their determination and courage to lead the world into a new age with true liberty and justice for all.   

• Pray for the change of hearts of the major emitting nations (for example: USA, Australia, Canada, Japan, etc.) towards courage and make greater GHG emissions reductions so that the earth will stay within 1.5 degrees of warming.  We have heard the pleas of the developing countries and small island states that are most severely impacted by the climate crisis.

• Pray for the resolution of key sections of the Paris Agreement, including Article 6 (carbon markets), Warsaw International Mechanisms, and Loss and Damage, without any of those sections being substantively “watered down”.  Pray for consensus and unity so that the resolution of these measures will justly and effectively reduce carbon emissions, flow the necessary finance and technology to countries that need it, while supporting Indigenous peoples’ rights and human rights.

• In an act of frustration and determination, hundreds of COP badge holders protested in the halls of the convention during the second week. Minority and underrepresented groups, particularly indigenous populations and civil society activist organizations, raised their voice in a way that could no longer be ignored.  Pray for the leaders of COP25, not only for progress to be made in the negotiations and commitments, but especially for them to give greater recognition and importance to the very people bearing the most severe consequences of climate change.

• Pray for a heart change amongst all business stakeholders, including the fossil fuel industry and its subsidiary and related businesses, to recognize the importance and urgency of climate change and to make the business decisions necessary to transition to a decarbonized world.  

Strength to sustain Christian Climate Action After COP25 

• Please pray that God will lead each of our CCOP students into the experiences at COP25 which will best equip them for godly and effective climate action. Both week one and two teams are reporting back to their home churches.  Pray that they may effectively communicate about the urgency of climate action and mobilize their churches to care for God's creation.

• Please pray that the church worldwide will awaken to their stewardship of God's creation, and that Christians will take the message of HOPE in Christ Jesus to our neighbours during this time of climate crisis.

• Pray for the Spanish churches may internalize the message presented and find ways to turn their energy into mobilization and action. Pray for that A Rocha Spain will be established as a creation care ministry.

• Please pray for the sustained efforts of all CCOP members and their partnering organizations.  All of us came here with at least a basic understanding of what facing the climate crisis will mean, but the further we dig, the more stories we hear, the more pain we see...it takes a toll. We are all committed more now than ever before, but the experiences we have at COP25 can, and often do, exact a price. As COP25 ends, with talks that have stagnated and protests growing, we at CCOP need your prayers and support to be inspired to minister with and in the name of Jesus in a time of climate crisis. 

Climate Consequences for People and Creation: 

• Pray for the people, families, and communities in all nations who are experiencing more climate-induced extreme weather events and disasters (including cyclones, droughts, floods, etc.).  Pray for liberty from the devastation caused by unfaithfulness to our God's call of stewardship, and justice for the lives already impacted, and the millions more who will be.

• Prayer for the health of our oceans.

• Pray for the people of Chile, who were going to host COP25, and who are experiencing a political and social crisis.  One Chilean one of our CCOP participants spoke to commented “every city is in chaos” in Chile right now.   

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A prayer from ACT Alliance, #ACT4Climate

God of all the earth,
As climate chaos
wreaks havoc on homes,
livelihoods and hopes,
we raise our voices
and call for justice
for those who suffer the most
but are least responsible,
who have had enough
of empty promises,
perpetual relief packages
and failed carbon reduction commitments.
We pray for wise and courageous action
for all of creation at this critical hour.
In the name of Jesus and for Your Glory, we pray.
Amen.

Dios de toda la tierra,
Mientras el caos climático
causa estragos en los hogares,
formas de sustento y esperanzas,
levantamos nuestras voces
y pedimos justicia
para los que más sufren
pero son los menos responsables,
que están cansados
de promesas vacías,
y de falta de ayuda
y de compromisos fallidos en la lucha por el clima
Oramos por una acción sabia y valiente
para todo la creación en esta hora crītica.
En el nombre de Jesús y por Tu Gloria, oramos,
Amén.

Urgent Prayer Needed for COP25

Please join us in this urgent prayer for the final days of COP25

It is Thursday of the final week of the COP25 climate summit, originally scheduled to close tomorrow. Please join us in urgent prayers that beseech: “O God, this is a prayer of a strong finish that yields a strong beginning. We appeal to the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all creation to deliver COP25 from a failure that we and our neighbors in this world can no longer afford.” (The remainder of the prayer is written below.)

Four revealing stories from Wednesday alone:

1. Canada’s National Observer reports:

Protests led by Indigenous leaders shut down the main hall of COP25 in Madrid on Wednesday. In an unprecedented event, about 500 people stormed the area outside the high-level negotiations decrying the lack of action by assembled governments to address the climate emergency.

The state of negotiations at COP25 was described as a "Kafkaesque absurdity" by the head of Climate Action Network Canada, Catherine Abreu. On Tuesday, negotiators at one session spent 20 minutes arguing over whether to "adjourn" or "close" their meeting and an equal amount of time debating whether to display items on a projection screen.

The protests themselves had a Kafkaesque quality, taking place in the grand hall festooned with enormous UN signs declaring "#TimeforAction."

Protestors were joined by youth and faith-based allies and found themselves detained in an attached warehouse while the UNFCCC considered the fate of their credentials. Please consider that these are not outside protestors; these are credentialled observers. What have they observed at COP25, and previous COPs since Paris in 2015, that would lead them to risk their credentialing, if not arrest, for “unauthorized protest”? People are frustrated and angry.

2. Consider as well the prophetic witness of Greta Thunberg, just yesterday named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019. She did not step up to the microphone and look approvingly on COP25 as if we were her people, as if we were aligning ourselves with the prophetic vision that she espouses and symbolizes. Instead she accused world leaders of “creative PR” and noted that “since the Paris Agreement, global banks have invested $1.9 trillion in fossil fuels.” Our youth are not satisfied with the efforts of COP25 negotiators.

3. Three Canadian participants of CCOP enjoyed a long conversation with environmental hero Elizabeth May, the first member of Canada’s Green Party to ever be elected as an MP. She has been to more COPs than she can enumerate, she said. “Copenhagen was the worst. I don’t mean to sound cheesy, but there are good cops and bad cops, and COP25 so far is a bad COP.” May thought it unlikely that negotiators would finish their work in time, and that COP25 would be adjourned until Sunday, but even worse: that the unfinished work of COP25 mightly likely spill into 2020, further delaying attention on ramping up the NDCs which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Seasoned veterans are not pleased about the prospects for success.

4. One of our most enthusiastic CCOP participants has been Fernando, a climate researcher from a small university in Argentina. Last night, he was invited to a reception at the Argentinian embassy. When he returned back to Base Camp that evening, he was discouraged. “I’ve had so many dark conversations,” he said. He had talked to too many officials who whether out of discouragement or disingenuity, were ready to blame others (like the IMF) or their circumstances (like poverty) for their own hesitancy to take the climate action which is under their control. Even our most hopeful new arrivals battle despair at a closer “inside look” at COP25.

The outcomes of COP25 seem to be on a razor’s edge. Will you pray with us?

The build-up to COP25 made two tactical errors and now is in critical danger of paying the price:

1. The sentiment was bantered around that COP25 was a “minor COP,” almost a matter of housekeeping. COP26 however! When the U.K. hosts COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020—now, that’s the truly significant COP. Christiana Figueres is the former UN official who presided over the Paris climate negotiation. Her current organization is called Mission 2020, and before COP25 could bang its gavel in 2019, she said, “2020 is the first time since the Paris Agreement that countries will come together to assess how much they've been able to do and how much more they can do.” She says, “If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.”

I understand the necessity of markers and timeframes, but we realize, don’t we, that to “change course by 2020” means that we must change course in 2019? It’s not like the Paris Agreement is a freight train and that our hand is on the railway switch, our eye on the stopwatch, waiting to pull the switch and change tracks at the orderly time. Instead, the Paris process is like a cumbersome ocean liner and the entire weight of the officers and sailors must be on the wheel, dragging it desperately around in order to avert a collision with the looming iceberg. I can’t imagine a successful COP26 without a successful COP25.

And to tell you the truth by way of confession, without projecting on anyone else: there is the hint of ethnocentrism to a too overly fond gaze on our younger son, COP26. Our older son, COP25, is swarthy and malnourished. Rejected once already by Brazil, cobbled together by Chile here in Madrid, what are we to expect of COP25? By contrast, a UK news website declared the headline: “Could an upcoming climate summit become the next Paris agreement?” No one—absolutely no one—is asking COP26 to be the next Paris Agreement, but the writer insists, “The Glasgow 2020 event could be key to the fight against climate change—but the UK needs to make sure it does its part. . . . There is a lot of optimism around COP26 because it is being branded as the ground on which to build upon the work achieved at the 2015 Paris summit where ambitious national emission reduction commitments were made by many countries.”

We have made the error of comparing COP25 to a COP that doesn’t even exist yet, while assuming that the youth, island nations, and indigenous peoples will be willing to wait one more year until “the main event.” We failed to understand that from here on out, THERE IS NO SUCH THING as a minor COP. May the Lord forgive our arrogance for the future and our neglect of the present.

2. The second error involves COP25’s agenda. It was published beforehand and attends to related work and to some unfinished business from Katowice (COP24): namely carbon markets (also referred to as “Article 6”), loss and damage, gender equity, finance, and stock take. These are important subjects and they do pertain to the completion of the “rule book” that will free up 2020 to focus primarily on Ambition. And yet, why did we assume that in the year of Greta Thunberg and School Strikes and Extinction Rebellion that the world was going to be content to discuss anything other than Ambition? In this year of devastating wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding, why did anyone think that we would be content to talk about anything other than challenging each other on the ramped-up NDCs that are 100 percent serious about our warming targets?

And Article Six may prove to be have been the worst possible discussion topic to dominate COP25. For whatever the reality of honest and transparent carbon markets might be, the perception is that they are just another way for rich nations to become richer, for rich nations to pawn off their CO2 reductions on developing nations, and for rich nations to avoid emission reductions in their own right. Perception-wise, it is an added slap in the face to engage with such commitment the topic of carbon markets while engaging tentatively the topic of Loss and Damage. A nation like Tuvalu might wish for a carbon market on its soil, but alas, they will have no homeland to host an exchange of any sort. May the Lord forgive our failure to listen and our lack of empathy.

This is a preliminary analysis, and just one interpretation, of why COP25 is at its present crisis point here on Thursday afternoon. These four stories and these two analyses form the basis for the following prayer, a prayer asking for the Lord’s intervention in the final days of COP25, a prayer that is a prayer for COP26 in a foundational way, a prayer we are calling “The Strong Finish” prayer. Please join us in praying:

The Strong Finish Prayer

O God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

This is a prayer of a strong finish that yields a strong beginning. We appeal to the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of all creation to deliver COP25 from a failure that we and our neighbors in this world can no longer afford.

May the negotiating nations finish the work of the final days of COP25 in such a just, merciful, and humble way that the year 2020 is rendered free and serious.

May the run-up to next year’s COP26 be freed up, without distraction, to be focussed on an ambitious ramping up of the emission reductions (NDCs) which will finally MATCH, not simply approximate, what scientists tell us can prevent the warming that will surely cause our worst suffering.

May a strong finish at COP25 send a signal that the governments of the world are serious about the Paris Agreement, that they have listened to the voices of our youth, our indigenous neighbors, our Pacific Island neighbors, indeed all our neighbors. Lord God, may they send the signal that next year’s COP26 is not some false hope, not some promise kicked down the road one more year, not some deus ex machina ready to save us in November, 2020—but instead that the next eleven months will be spent with the eye kept firmly on the prize: the promotion of the Common Good through serious and cooperative effort.

Creator God, at this moment at COP25, we feel like we are asking for a miracle, and so that is why we have come to you. We believe you are able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to your power that is at work within us. We say NOW, NOW, NOW to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

In and with the name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

Picasso’s “La Guernica” in Madrid
(COP25 reflections by Lowell Bliss)

The Reina Sofia is just around the corner from here at CCOP Base Camp. The museum houses Pablo Picasso’s famous reflection on the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, and in particular, the devastation of April 26, 1937 when Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe conducted an aerial bombing of the Basque village of Guernica, almost as a practice run for WWII’s blitzkrieg. Before I wrote “Strong Finish” prayer, I ran down to the Reina Sofia and stood for forty minutes in front of Picasso’s painting. It is a massive canvas, measuring 3.49 meters (11 ft 5 in) tall and 7.76 meters (25 ft 6 in) across. When I entered the marble room, five men were already standing in front of the painting. They wore around their necks the light blue lanyards and the red badges of a COP25 party. They were from India.

I’ll leave you to your own meditations on the painting, and just share one relevant interpretation of my own. It was the inspiration I was looking for about praying for the final days of COP25. There are only two hands in the painting which are not flayed open in lament. One is at the bottom, but it is part of a severed arm and the sword it still clutches is broken and useless. The other, directly above at the top, seems to still retain strength. It clutches a candle stand with a lighted flame. It is not the only light source in the room, a room which impresses itself upon the viewer like a torture chamber, but the light that presumes to be the sun may really only be an incandescent bulb, or an eye that looks dispassionately and technologically from above. The flame of the candlestick, however, looks organic, like an apple core. Its wick looks like a seed.

When we pray that COP25 finishes strongly, we hold out boldly the light, and we trust in the seed. This year of ramped-up ambition needs Madrid’s steady light to see by; COP26 needs the successful germination of COP25’s seed. I asked Simon Chambers of ACT Alliance last night, “What is your gut feeling of when you are going to stop talking about the 1.5 degree target?” He replied, “I’ll stop when the IPCC tells us that 1.5 is no longer possible.”

I now feel the same way about COP25: I’ll stop praying for it only when the gavel comes down on it.

Praying with ACT Alliance at COP25

A prayer from ACT Alliance, #ACT4Climate

God of all the earth,
As climate chaos
wreaks havoc on homes,
livelihoods and hopes,
we raise our voices
and call for justice
for those who suffer the most
but are least responsible,
who have had enough
of empty promises,
perpetual relief packages
and failed carbon reduction commitments.
We pray for wise and courageous action
for all of creation at this critical hour.
In the name of Jesus and for Your Glory, we pray.
Amen.

Seeking Hidden Treasure at COP25

originally published at www.carafleischer.com

by Cara Fleischer

Monday, December 2, 2019 Madrid, Spain

On Monday morning the music on my phone alarm pulled me out of a deep sleep in my cozy bedroom in Madrid so I checked the window to see that the rain was gone. The first day of the U.N. COP25 climate conference had finally arrived! With ten people staying together in this Air B&B flat on the Christian Observers program (7 women and 3 men), bathroom time would certainly be limited, so hustled in and out of the bathroom and put on my business suit in a hurry. Lowell Bliss, our leader and spiritual guide on this trip asked us to join him at 7:30 am for breakfast and a devotional, and I didn’t want to miss it.

Most of our group was already gathered with Lowell around the large dining room table under a bright florescent light as I settled into a chair with my boiled egg and coffee. With a welcoming smile Lowell thoughtfully began speaking about our first day at COP25. He shared stories from the Bible that said the kingdom of God is a treasure, it is like yeast, a pearl, a mustard seed, organic and hidden. He encouraged us to see our experience at this conference the same way. We cannot know what kind of information we will encounter within those walls that will increase our understanding, and who we meet that will enrich our experience. We might see this opportunity as a treasure hunt just waiting to be discovered, and our interactions as mustard seeds that will grow into something substantial. I found Lowell’s theology so helpful that I jotted some of his words on a napkin and made a mental note to bring my notebook the next morning.

We bundled up in our coats and stepped into the cold morning air as a group and headed up a long hill to the metro station. It was crowded with morning travelers and we had to work hard not to lose each other as we negotiated the three trains that took us to the convention site. When we arrived at the final stop, two women with a wind energy group were handing out bags of swag to everyone who walked by, and the walls were covered with slogans about climate change. We had arrived! 

Once in the hall we quickly made our way through security and took the obligatory photo in front of the COP 25 sign, and then headed to the first plenary session and opening ceremony. The word spread within our group that our passes wouldn’t allow us entry into the main hall where the world leaders were already negotiating inside, so some headed to other venues, but we were feeling brave and walked on through the security. They looked at our badges and nodded us in. Excellent! The enormous convention room was filled with chairs for observers in the back that were all taken, and then lines of desks with microphones and paper signs with the names of all the countries in the world filled the rest of the hall. At the front of the room there was a tall, well-lit stage with dignitaries seated at a long table. They were so far away that I could only see their shapes, but the large tv’s around the hall projected video of a man with a heavy accent expressing his unhappiness about an agreement that he claimed was decided on yesterday but was being changed today. There weren’t any seats, so we found a spot against the wall and sat down to try to make sense of it all. After about 15 minutes the session ended, and we now understood that this hall was for the delegations to interact to set the rules through parliamentary procedure. We checked our long list of information sessions going on and headed off to the Climate Action Network (CAN) Capacity Building for Newcomers to COP seminar that sounded helpful.

I did my homework before coming to COP25 so the information we received was familiar. Speakers shared on Loss & Damage (referring to the severe impacts of climate change that hurt poor countries and who needed to be compensated financially by polluting countries that have caused the climate crisis); Ambition (the amount of green house gases countries pledge to reduce to meet the Paris Agreement’s obligation to keep our planet’s warming below 1.5 degrees C); and Climate Finance (money that developing countries receive from wealthy ones for mitigation and adaptation projects). A major focus of this COP was to get more money for Loss & Damage because poor countries were already suffering the worst impacts of climate change and could not afford to recover from extreme droughts, floods, cyclones, and sea level rise. They need the rich countries to help them financially to avoid terrible human rights issues like starvation, mass migration, and even death of their people. It was heavy stuff and I was glad the U.N. was addressing the moral and human rights aspects of climate change.

After the seminar was over, I got a message from my Facebook friend and fellow Earthkeeper Mel Caraway of Texas that the U.S. Congressional Delegation was about to give a press conference, so I packed up and hurried over. We finally met in person and shared a big hug, and talked about what we were doing back home. He learned that only the press were allowed in the meeting so we stood outside, getting a little peek of what was happening in the room through the glass windows. A few minutes later Mel realized that we could walk around the right side of the walled off room close to the side doors to get a better view of the delegation on the stage and to hear what they were saying. I saw Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a coral suit right in the front, and she was very animated as she declared “We Are Still In!” This gave me a lot of pride because our group felt the loss of not having a positive U.S. presence here because Trump was pulling out of the Paris Agreement and is a climate denier. I heard Speaker Pelosi say that the USA was pledging to be 100% carbon neutral by 2050, and then she said “We will be addressing this crisis with three words: science, science, and science. Well maybe four, science!” to laughter in the room. Then Florida Rep. and Select Committee on the Climate Crisis Chairwoman Kathy Castor spoke and said that her committee is hoping to turn policy proposals into legislation but needed bipartisan support. “There is urgency and the time for action is now,” she told the writers in the room.

I stood outside the door and listened to the entire presser, and to my surprise the delegation exited the room through that door and then Speaker Pelosi was standing right in front of me! I thanked her and introduced myself as a Creation Care leader from Florida, and she shook my hand, smiled, and said “You need to meet Kathy!” Rep. Castor was right behind her and she smiled wide as we shook hands and I explained that I lived in Tallahassee and was grateful for her work on climate change. She put her bag down and we talked for about five minutes about how she would like to do more with the faith community and perhaps we could work together on an advocacy day at the capitol next year. She said that there was a faith-leaders meeting tomorrow and that I should attend. Her assistant gave me her card and said she would let me know the details. We took a photo together and I thanked her again. I couldn’t believe my luck!

Then I remembered Lowell’s devotion that morning, how at this conference we are searching for treasure that will enhance our ability to work on the climate crisis, just like we are search for the kingdom of God. I had this feeling move through me to my toes that perhaps me meeting the most powerful women in the U.S. government wasn’t just by chance. I said a prayer of thanks as I walked away with a big smile on my face.

A Letter of Challenge, Hope, and Realism to Our CCOP Participants

This letter was sent out from the CCOP leadership to our teams on the “eve of their depature” to Madrid for COP25. It is a challenge to realism and hope in the face of climate action.

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Dear Samuel, Lindsay, Camille, Rich, Rocio, Cara, Carol, Melody, Shana, and Lindsay of Week One.
Dear Emma, Rebecca, Monica, Joanne, Juliana, Alex, Chris, Victoria, Daniel, and Fernando of Week Two.

On behalf of Brian and myself, and of the CCOP Leadership Team, and of our five Sponsoring Partners--   we would like to thank you for the enthusiasm and diligence with which you have engaged CCOP2019 and COP25.  The webinars last week, in which you shared your own vision statements and plans, were thrilling.  It is our hope that CCOP will establish you in new ways as a climate leader, that your sphere of influence will grow and that your messaging and campaigning will become more and more passionate and effective as a result of your experience in Madrid.  It has also been thrilling to hear accounts of various “commissioning services” in your churches.  We hope that CCOP will give you and your constituents new insight into the Christian and missional depths of climate action.

We are on the eve of departing for Madrid.  I wish to share some thoughts about hope.   According to French lay theologian, Jacques Ellul, a profound commitment to realism is one of the pillars on which a radical, biblical hope rests.  “Hope,” he writes, “finds its substance in realism and the latter finds its possibility in hope.”  We must be realistic about climate change, about the Paris Agreement, about COP25, and also about our influence in “speaking truth to power” at this big global event.  Yet, even if that realism will often feel like pessimism at times, please remember that realism about COP25 “finds its possibility in hope.”  Let me challenge you with four actions that are built on hope and possibility.

1.  Struggle bravely and faithfully for the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement is not a perfect document, but I love it nonetheless.  I love the Paris Agreement.  I love it for being a cooperative good will effort that for once in modern history was able to bring 196 nations together for the sake of, yes, their own national interests, but also for the interests of the poor and the vulnerable.  While much climate action happens in the world outside the Paris Agreement, nothing happens without reference to the Paris Agreement.  And, as Brian points out in our first newsletter: 

• Switching light bulbs, carpooling, eating less meat, and supporting good climate policies are essential for all of us. But personal actions will always fall short of solving this crisis unless they are joined by an organized and ambitious global effort. That’s why the Paris Agreement and the annual COP’s are so critical to our progress. 

Realistically, the Paris Agreement has been at risk since the moment it was adopted at COP21 in 2015.  There is the danger that it will become just a more-sophisticated, more-valiant-attempt than the Copenhagen Accord (COP15).  Unless the nations revise their NDCs with ambition to make them more aligned with what the IPCC is saying about carbon budgets, and then actually make the emission reductions, the Paris Agreement risks dying of a lack of being taken seriously. Considering the quickly closing window of preventing climate change impacts, my greater fear is that future historians will look back at the Paris Agreement and put it in the same category as the Versailles Treaty of 1919 and the League of Nations, high-minded global efforts which in the end fail to prevent catastrophe.  

One of the flaws of the Paris Agreement is what little attention it pays to the prevention target of a 1.5° C warming.   Realism would seem to indicate that we will likely blow past 1.5° C.  Another flaw with the Agreement is that it makes it too easy to think of the 2.0° C prevention target as binary: either we “make it” or we don’t.   And yet there is an exponential difference in human suffering and eco-system devastation between 1.5° C and 2.0° C, between 2.0° C and 2.5° C, between 2.5° C and 3.0° C, etc.  If we blow past 1.5° C, you will want to be able to look a Kiribati islander in the eye and say, “I did not treat COP25 as a European vacation; I did everything in my power.”  If we blow past 2.0° C, you will want to look 2.5° C in the eye and say, “Not on my watch; I will not give up.”  These are commitments we make now however: to remain faithful to the end, to not give up.  Will you make that commitment?

2.  Bear witness with your presence: “We are STILL IN!”

At last Thursday’s noon webinar, Jessie Y. (formerly of the State Dept. Climate Bureau, now of Oxfam) informed us of this bit of realism: “The US government doesn’t care about civil society.”  This would have been true (likely, and to some degree) with a Hillary Clinton administration too.  Our government negotiating teams are too big, too busy, too focused on their small slice of technical expertise, and too aware of domestic politics to treat our small little CCOP group or your genuine, individual eagerness with anything other than the politeness that their professionalism requires.  We might claim to speak for “the Creator God”—as Pope Francis did with Laudato Si in the run-up to Paris in 2015—and yet the response is the same: a polite reaction, but failure on our part to “move the needle.”

We have also been challenged by Christian organizations, more veteran than us at the COPs, who have said: “Why do you want to emit all that carbon going to a COP, let alone taking a group with you, when the decisions that you want to influence have all been made weeks and months earlier outside of the COP?”  They raise a good question; we must be good stewards of our portion of the carbon budget.  However, Jessie provided one of two good answers when he told us of something that is possible for us to accomplish, with hope, at COP25.  He said, “We need to let the other NGOs and the other negotiators know: ‘We are still in!’”  Jessie was speaking primarily to our American CCOPers and in light of Trump’s withdrawal from the Agreement.  He was speaking in reference to the US Climate Action Zone (which will be in Madrid from Dec 6-11), a coalition of states, municipalities, businesses, universities AND faith-based institutions which reflect what Jessie told us: “The American public are 5-to-1 in favor of remaining in the Paris Agreement.”

Nonetheless, Jessie’s message is not only for our American CCOPers nor should we only direct our “We are still in!” message to other NGOs or other governments.  We bear witness to the US government (including to the next administration) and to ALL governments that the Paris Agreement is important enough to come here and support.  To the extent that we represent evangelical, or have come out of conservative evangelical, backgrounds, we testify to the world that in the same way that YHWH encouraged Elijah (I Kings 19), so now there are likewise “7000 prophets who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Look, here are 23 of us and our constituents back home who have sent us!  

We also bear witness to the forces of darkness, including to whom or to what N.T. Wright calls “the Satan,” that we are still here and that we will not be moved.  Revelations 12:11 will figure into one of our morning devotionals at COP25: “They triumphed over [the Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”   Our presence at COP25 is part of “the word of our testimony.”  And finally, we also bear witness to God himself.   It may be a lament, or it may be the prayer of hope that Ellul calls the “prayer of protest,” but we declare to God: “Look upon on us and have mercy.  We are here because the Paris Agreement is important to us.”  When you get your UNFCCC badge at registration, it will come with your name and with your picture on it.  It will come with a lanyard.  When you put it on for the first time, take a moment to look toward the entrance of COP25 and say: “I am [state your name] and I am here!”  Then give a glance up toward heaven and say, “Father God, I wear this badge like I would sackcloth and ashes.  I am your child and I am here.”

3.  Diligently and enthusiastically communicate back home.

If you can’t realistically influence the negotiators at COP25, then why expend the CO2 to fly to Madrid?  The second answer, full of possibility and hope, is that you are about to be in the strongest position ever to report back to your constituency and mobilize them for climate action.  There is nothing comparable to reporting about a COP FROM a COP.  With your attendance at COP25, you have made yourself newsworthy and your constituents have perked their ears and are listening, some for the very first time.  Think of the commissioning services that some of us have had in our churches: that never would have happened if you and I had not been getting on a plane for Madrid in the next couple weeks.  Whatever you may be now, when you return from COP25, you will be credible climate leader; you will have a new credential, your words will have added weight.

If some of our well-meaning detractors say that you can only influence a COP before the COP, not at it, well then we can reply: “that’s exactly what we are doing: we are trying to influence COP26, 27, 28 etc. by being here at COP25,” just like we are trying to influence climate action in 2020, the US elections of 2020, whatever lobbying we do with CCL in the future, whatever we teach our students, etc.

The challenge here is that your communication from COP25 is a precious stewardship.  It is an opportunity that God’s creation can ill afford for you to squander.   Diligently report back.  And report back according to best practices.  (Remember the admonition from your Communication Plan: “collect and tell well-crafted stories”).   But here is an added challenge: don’t catch yourself simply “preaching to the choir.”  Your constituency may already be well-established, regular listeners to your climate messages.   To avoid COP25 simply being an exercise in “reinforcement,” please consider 1) how to EXPAND your constituency with new contacts, with new names on your contact list, with new organizations in your network, with new listeners and/or readers; and 2) how to DEEPEN your existing constituency.  This will require some discernment on your part, but what is the “next step” that your constituency can be called to take in their own commitment to climate action?  What is the next insight or paradigm shift that even these “true believers” must make?

4.  Allow yourself to be changed by CCOP2019 and COP25.

You may not realistically be able to change the Paris Process or your nation’s NDC ambition at COP 25, but you CAN change yourself.  More accurately, you WILL be changed at COP25, so long as you allow yourself to be.  It is no accident that you are going to Madrid.  God wants you there.  He has a gift he wants to give you there.  What is it?  I don’t know, and neither do you.  Nonetheless, go with expectancy and hope.

Do you remember my contribution to our third webinar: how early 20th Century climatologist John Tyndall influenced how mainline and evangelical churches prayed (including about such things as climate change) with his famous “Prayer Gauge” debate?  I for one intend to sit in that tension at COP25 as someone who does pray and as someone who hates that old Christian platitude: “Prayer doesn’t change things; prayer changes me.”   Of course, prayer changes me, but isn’t it a both/and thing and not simplistically an either/or thing?

Part of allowing yourself to be changed is to widen your field of vision.  EVERYTHING that happens in and around a COP is fair game for God to use.  It will be part of your COP25 story, and you will need to learn how to interpret these things vis-à-vis climate change.  For example, last year, a kidney stone attack and a tour of Auschwitz were part of my COP24 story, however tangential they may have appeared at first glance.  Please also remember Leah Kostamo’s teaching at our third webinar: the Welcoming Prayer is not just a tool to prevent burn-out in our activism; it is an interpretative device to inform our activism.   The Welcoming Prayer opens us to self-transformation. 

Conclusion and a Commission

“Hope,” Jacques Ellul tells us, “is not something to counterbalance pessimism and realism, to counteract reality clearly seen, understood, and grasped.  Hope finds its substance in realism, and the latter finds its possibility in hope.”  So please go to COP25 will your eyes wide-open, with as few illusions as possible about the reality of our situation there.    Ellul warns that “without this realism, hope can only fall back into idealism, and it is my belief that idealism, at whatever level, is the worst of all traps, and represents the greatest danger for [humanity]. . . . Idealism is a source of [humanity’s] continual disillusionment.  It is [one’s] temptation to live something other than [one’s self].”  There is a lot of idealism at a COP.  There is no need however to be afraid of realism, because we have hope.  Ellul writes: 

• Without a living hope there is likewise no human capacity to consider the actual situation.  [Humanity] can never stand reality.  [One] spends [their] time lying to [one’s self], covering up the real, providing [one’s self] illusions and rationalizations. . . . Without hope, reality becomes an unbearable mechanism, a continual damnation, a source of fear and apprehension which cannot be appeased.”

Ellul continues, “[Humanity] can never look situations squarely in the face, yet [they are] always frustrated and blocked when [they fail] to do so.  The person who fails to look at the real, to accept it even in its most threatening aspects, to see the impasse or the fatality in which [one] finds [one’s self], can never find a way out of it either, can never surmount the reality nor in any way get beyond it to make history.”

According to your vision statements, you intend to be a person who uses COP25 in order to “get beyond reality in order to make history.”   Ellul will tell you: “Hope then acts to keep the interpretation from being a lie, an illusion, a justification.  But more than that, it produces the power whereby we are not conquered by the reality, whereby the experience of the death of a person, of a brother, does not bring me to the point of suicide, or of giving up, but becomes, to the contrary, the point of departure for life and hope.”

We wish you the power of hope as you embark on your journey at COP25.   Where does one find hope?  Another theologian, Walter Brueggemann, says that the basis of hope is the reality that “God is a real character and an effective agent in the world.”  Let that be your mantra at COP25:  “God, you are a real character here at COP 25; you are an effective agent in the Paris negotiations.”

I am so glad that my introverted self found the courage to act on Rich’s encouragement and ask my new church for a “commissioning” at yesterday’s service.   It is was a meaningful moment for me, made more so by the fact that my “sending church” back in Kansas had a congregational meeting on Thursday night where, by voting on the new budget, they effectively ratified a decision by the elder board to stop supporting our ministry of 26 years because of our “activism.”   If you haven’t had a commissioning service from your local church—either because it was not arranged, or because such a thing would never be arranged at your church--then allow me on behalf of Brian and myself, and of our CCOP leadership team, and of our five Sponsoring partners, to do so here at the end of this letter:

• We commission you, our dear sister, our dear brother, and send you to Madrid, to COP25, to CCOP2019 in the power of the Holy Spirit to do the work that the Creator God has called you.  We send you out with no fear of realism and with a strong assurance of hope.  We exhort you to struggle bravely, to bear witness faithfully, to communicate diligently, and to open your hearts trustfully.  We bless you now in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We look forward to seeing you soon in Madrid,

Lowell Bliss
Co-leader with Brian Webb of CCOP2019

Once upon a time in Madrid on a warming planet...

We’ll begin telling our stories on Dec 2nd. Until then, here’s a story from COP24 in Katowice, Poland

“Greta Thunberg Has a Dad”

Originally published at The Liberator Today
by Lowell Bliss

We were a scant quarter mile into the climate march that civil society groups were hosting on the Saturday between the two weeks of the latest UN climate summit, COP 24 in Katowice, Poland.  Someone inadvertently bumped into my hip and I looked over and saw a familiar face.  It was 15-year old climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Greta, now sixteen, was a familiar face last Friday. In fact, in your news feeds, you saw either one of two photos from the worldwide strike by schoolchildren for climate action.  Either you saw the huge crowds of kids marching in protest, or you saw a photo of the girl who had inspired them all.   Greta was the first to scrawl a sign: “Skolstrejk för Klimatet.”  Three weeks before Sweden’s parliamentary election on September 9 of last year, Greta took up position on the steps of parliament, demanding that government take more radical action on carbon dioxide emissions.  After the elections, she returned to school for four days each week, but every Friday she was back out on strike.   On this past Friday, she was joined by children in 123 different countries, and in all 50 states.   Kids are creative; my favorite protest signs all had to do with playing hooky, such as “Why Should We Go to School if You Won’t Listen to the Educated?,” and “Civil Disobedience Requires No Permission Slip” and  “If you didn’t want us to skip school, you shouldn’t have given us such good science teachers.”

The climate march in Katowice was a long, slow affair. We shuffled.  I had plenty of time to strike up a conversation with Svante Thunberg, Greta’s father.   He’s forty-nine, an actor, and we chatted about his visit to the Niagara region back when he was in grad school.  “I doubt if I’ll get back,” he told me.  He and his family have given up flying.  I bragged a little also about my own two remarkable daughters, Adelaide and Bronwynn.  

During the COP, Svante and Greta appeared for a press briefing sponsored by scientistswarning.tv.  Moderator Scott Stuart introduced him, “And with her is her father who is an author and actor,” and then putting his hand up to the side of his face as if to create an ‘aside’ with the audience, he said, “he happens to be her PR person, her chauffer, her protector, all of the above; a very, very dedicated man.”

Much has been said about Greta, and her younger sister Beata, being diagnosed with autism and ADHD.  Their mother, Svante’s wife, Malena Ernman wrote a book about their care.  At the press briefing however, Svante was able to fill in the picture about Greta’s move into climate action: “Greta fell ill – I think it was four or five years ago. She stopped eating and she stopped talking and she fell into a depression.  And she stayed home from school for almost a year.  She lost a lot of weight and went away to hospital.  So we stayed at home, my wife and I.  We stopped working.  . . . We have two daughters and we made sure they were feeling well again.   Once Greta was coming back, it turned out she was very concerned and upset about the climate.  She has been going on about this before, obviously, but it sort of stuck to her and she could not get this out of her head: the fact that everyone was saying one thing and doing the exact opposite all the time, not least, us parents.”

Svante, picking at his beard with his left hand and staring off into his memories, described his wife and himself as “very concerned” people: they were active in issues of human rights and care of refugees.  “But in Greta’s eyes, of course, we were missing out on one big point, in fact the most important point, which was the climate and the sustainability crisis going on all around us.  While we were saying all these things about taking care of our fellow man, we were flying around, eating meat, buying things, and driving a big car, having two homes and of course, that’s not really sustainable. And then we realized that we were, of course, a huge part of the problem.  In fact, we were the problem.  Greta could not, sort of, get around that, and it made her very, very upset.”

Then Svante said, “So, listening to her, we started taking in the sustainability and the climate crisis and we embarked on a road which we are still upon.  She told us that we had to change.”   They did.

Svante Thunberg, forty nine years old, father of two, successful career man—listened to his daughter.  And that may have made all the difference in the world, for our world. Out on the march, shuffling along, enjoying being outside, watching other marchers suddenly recognize Greta, watching her patiently pose for another selfie, I turned to Svante and said, “You know, Greta gets a lot of admiration, and it is deserved.  She’s pretty remarkable.  But I want to say. . . Dad. . . that I think you are pretty remarkable too.”  

It was announced last week that Greta Thunberg has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Hey you, Dad. . . Mom. . .if you are listening to your kids’ concerns, if you discover the strengths in their disabilities, if you are determined to raise adults who care, if you are open to change. . . well, I think you are pretty remarkable too.   Good job!