Connecting local context to global climate negotiations

At COP30, faith voices rise for hope, justice, and solidarity 

In Brazil, The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is currently represented at COP30 through delegates both online and onsite, in Belém most notably through young people from the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IELCB), an LWF member church. 

In addition to the formal negotiation spaces at the venue of the 30^th Conference to the Parties (COP30) to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), there is a wide range of civil society engagement, not least through a People’s Summit, and an ambitious program coordinated by the ecumenical and interfaith initiative TAPIRI.

In particular, an IECLB youth-led climate justice project with LWF’s support, has made it possible to link advocacy and engagement at COP30 to the geographical and cultural context in which this year’s  summit takes place. This initiative  also allow for intercultural exchange to contribute to nurturing leadership development as part of the experience.

Luiz Henrique Seidel, national coordinator of the IELCB youth council said for him, inspiration to engage this way at COP30 grew partly from his experience of an LWF Peace Messengers training some years ago.

As LWF Program Executive for Climate Justice Elena Cedillo explains, churches play an important role in accompanying communities suffering the consequences of a changing climate. At the same time, churches themselves are affected communities that can contribute valuable knowledge on adapting and building resilience at individual, collective and institutional levels and raise their prophetic public voice to demand justice and inspire action.

“Our engagement at COP reflects our commitment to climate justice. We are contributing the knowledge, wisdom and lived experience of our communities to influence the decisions that affect us all,” Cedillo said. 

Encounter with community in Vila da Barca 

In the opening days of COP, LWF delegates alongside representatives from the Church of Sweden, an LWF member church, visited r the local community of the Unidade de Saúde da Familia Vila da Barca, some 1,400 families and roughly 6-7,000 inhabitants living in the outskirts of Belém. 

The community lives in so-called 'Palafitas', wooden stilt houses placed above the water near the shore of Guajará Bay, part of the larger delta of the Amazon River.

Marciele Diniz, member and treasurer of the IELCB Belém congregation, received the delegates, welcoming them into the community where she grew up, and still lives today. The congregation itself grew out of a group of marginalized people, many of whom were mothers with children whose fathers had abandoned the family.

Diniz said the community shares a history of being exposed to environmental racism. The people lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation while they suffer the consequences of exposure to sewage water from the wealthier parts of the larger city being led to outlets precisely at Vila da Barca.

Moreover, living right at the shore of the Guajará Bay, with a changing climate,  exposes houses that were adequately placed above the river system’s rising and falling water levels to repeated flooding. The water reaches knee-deep levels right inside people’s kitchens and living rooms, she explained.

Rev. Romeu Martini, the IELCB Belém pastor, described the connection between the Brazilian Lutheran church and the community in Vila da Barca as a close one. 

“Starting in the 1980s and running until 2015, as a church we’ve supported this community through diaconal work, not least through social activities, providing spaces for people to meet and build community, through art and other activities,” he said. 

“While we do not have concrete projects here at the moment, it is clear to us that there is what I would describe as ‘a legacy of credibility in the Lutheran church’ among people here in Vila da Barca. There is deep trust in us as a church in this community, and there is a desire and wish from both sides for new projects to be undertaken here to help address the community’s needs in the future,” he reflected. 

For LWF delegate Natan Schumann, who first attended a COP in Glasgow, United Kingdom as an LWF delegate in 2021, the intentional connection with local communities, as well as the variety of activities that surround the COP this year, is positive. 

“I see this as a diverse way of engaging with the COP, and also of bringing back knowledge to this congregation and to our church as a whole,” he reflected. 

“We can contribute to the COP by showing the world that as people of faith, in our case especially as Christians, as Lutherans, we are concerned about the climate, that this world means to us God's Creation and we are also a part of it. If Creation is not doing well, we will not do well,” he concluded. 

Focus on youth leadership 

LWF Program Executive for Youth Savanna Sullivan attends COP with a particular focus on accompanying the young delegates through the lens of leadership development and the connection between advocacy and theology as young people. 

The way young people engage at this year’s COP is “precisely an example of what the LWF as a global communion is hoping to see around the world,” she said. Many of them have participated in different LWF leadership and theological formation activities that connect to holistic climate advocacy and bringing “the transformation that we really need in the world,” she noted. 

“Following God’s call to love our neighbor - transforming the world in this way - doesn't just come through the political apparatus, but it also doesn't just come through pulpits. It comes through engaging our whole selves, our whole communities, the whole person, our theology, creativity and our political action,” Sullivan concluded.