LWF to Participate in New York Interfaith Summit on Climate Change
Martin Kopp (right), LWF delegate to the UN Climate Conference (COP19), speaks with Christina Figueres, director of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Photo: LWF/ Sean Hawkey
Lutheran Delegates Host Fast at UN Summit Parallel Event
(LWI) – The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) continues its advocacy on climate change as “an urgent matter of social and economic justice” with events around the United Nations Climate Summit on 23 September, in a preceding Interfaith Summit and “Peoples Climate March" to be held in New York, United States.
The LWF Vice-President for Asia Ms Eun-hae Kwon will represent the LWF at the Interfaith Summit on Climate Change, 21-22 September, jointly organized by the World Council of Churches and Religions for Peace. The conference brings together 30 religious leaders who will discuss the specific contributions of faith traditions to the global climate debate. It will conclude with a statement to be presented to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has convened world leaders to the UN Summit to push for climate action ahead of the 2015 Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“We ask for intergenerational justice in the climate debates. It is also a responsibility of the young generation to be at the table of the negotiations,” notes Kwon, ahead of the meetings.
The LWF delegation to the annual COP meetings is made up of seven young representatives including Mr Martin Kopp (France) and Ms Tsiry Rakoto (Madagascar). Kopp will participate in the people’s march described as the “Largest Climate March in History.” Organized by a coalition of over 1,400 organizations including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, it will be joined by Ban Ki-moon, and supported by thousands of similar events around the world.
At a parallel event to the UN Summit, Kopp and Rakoto, will host a one-hour fasting vigil, aimed at drawing attention to the [Fast for the Climate campaign], initiated by the LWF delegation at the 2013 COP in Poland. The campaign, which includes other faith and civil society organizations, features a once-a-month fasting action in solidarity with the poorest and most vulnerable people who are adversely affected by climate change.
Through COP sessions and other related meetings, the LWF delegation to the climate change conferences engages the Lutheran communion and its member churches in sharing knowledge and learning about climate change across the different generations and other faiths.
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