15 November 2025, Belém, Brazil: LWF delegates to COP30 alongside representatives from other churches and ecumenical partners join tens of thousands gathered in downtown Belém for a People's March for Climate Justice in connection with the United Nations climate summit COP30 taking place in Belém, Brazil. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
LWF delegates call for accountability, courage, and shared responsibility
The United Nations (UN) climate summit COP30, taking place in Belém, Brazil from 10-21 November has reached its halfway mark, with delegates from the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) raising their voices in different negotiating spaces.
The two-week process of negotiating agreements on how to tackle an escalating global climate crisis marks ten years since the pivotal COP21 Paris Agreement in 2015, which established a framework for action to keep global temperatures below catastrophic levels.
Yet a decade after Paris, the world is by no means on track to achieve the agreed target of staying below an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.
In fact, 2024 already logged as the first individual year to average above 1.5 degrees, and by the most recent UN reports the world is currently headed towards an average increase of 2.6 degrees by the end of the century.
Caring for our one, common home
As COP30 opened, more than 100 faith leaders gathered onsite in Belém to take stock and look to the advocacy needed in order to push for real, concrete solutions as well as genuine commitment by governments in the years to come.
Carine Josiéle Wendland, one of the many young LWF delegates to COP30 from the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), underlined the urgency of the situation.
“Last year we already surpassed 1.5°C during several individual months, making concrete action more urgent than ever. We have to talk to our governments and to our local authorities, to demand a phase-out of fossil fuels and ensure they demonstrate real commitment to a just transition. We have to understand that we have one common home. It is not the common home for the Lutherans, or for the Catholics, but for all of us. We have one common home, and we are all a part of it,” she noted.
Hosted this year at the IECLB Belém congregation, the Talanoa dialogue feeds into the COP process through the Interfaith Liaison Committee (ILC) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Conversations underway during an interfaith gathering in the spirit of Talanoa dialogue on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit COP30. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
Conversations underway during an interfaith gathering in the spirit of Talanoa dialogue on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit COP30. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
Questions posed during an interfaith gathering in the spirit of Talanoa dialogue on the opening day of the United Nations climate summit COP30. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
“It is crucial that we transform our shared moral principles into bold, urgent ethical action. Faith communities can assist us in achieving this,” said LWF Program Executive for Climate Justice Elena Cedillo.
With the Paris framework awaiting real commitment from governments across the board, she noted that the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions are a key focus this year, alongside the issue of a just transition from fossil-fuel-driven economies.
At the same time, Cedillo said, the LWF contributes to this process both through the advocacy work, and by undertaking research among member churches and communities around the world to help build knowledge of the realities, and the opportunities, at hand.
“What we hear is actually that we do not only need a just transition, but a deeper transformation, one that is based on human rights and human dignity,” she said.
Lindsey Fielder Cook of the Quaker United Nations Office noted that “as faith leaders and as faith voices, we can cross boundaries and this is why the interfaith space is so important to us. Coming across together to speak on these issues, to take responsibility for our past and for our current roles.”
For indigenous people, women, young people, to be heard
Speaking at a press conference titled “Faith voices at COP30 speaking about the ethical dimension of the negotiations and climate action” convened by the ILC, LWF delegate Ruth Alesandra Choque Huanca of the Bolivian Evangelical Lutheran Church shared her experience as a young Indigenous Aymara woman.
LWF delegates to COP30 pictured at the venue in Belém. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
“I have learned that to adapt means to care, to protect life. And to take action to address the impact of climate change. It means listening to our elders, combining ancestral wisdom with new tools, and doing it all with respect for nature,” she said.
To protest for climate justice means that everyone can be heard in this process of COP: Indigenous people, women, young people and many other vulnerable groups
Wiebke Zimmermann, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany.
On 13 November, people from different faith traditions gathered at the Praça Batista Campos in Belém for a Vigil for the Earth, organized as part of the ecumenical and interfaith initiative TAPIRI. The ecumenical and interfaith dimensions run through LWF’s work at COP30.
“I think that it's a very powerful thing when people from different contexts and with different religions can gather to pray, to say grace, to reflect and to wish for the same things. Here we are wishing for a more just way to treat our home, to treat our planet, to treat the nature, the creation and the people,” said IECLB’s Jorge Fernando Cunha. A coordinator of the COP30 youth-led climate justice project, he was one of the hundreds of people gathered for the Vigil for the Earth.
People gather for a Vigil for the Earth at the Praça Batista Campos in Belém. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
Indigenous people pictured among tens of thousands gathered in downtown Belém for a People's March for Climate Justice. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
People join hands in prayer during an ecumenical and interfaith service held at the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, Cathedral of Saint Mary in Belém. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
On 15 November, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Belém for a People’s March for Climate Justice – among them representatives from a range of Christian traditions, and not least a substantial presence of Indigenous peoples.
“To protest for climate justice means that everyone can be heard in this process of COP: Indigenous people, women, young people and many other vulnerable groups,” said LWF delegate to COP30 Wiebke Zimmermann from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany.
“I hope the world sees that there is still hope for this Earth, and that people will understand that this Earth, our planet, is worth fighting for. We can still fight to limit the rising temperatures. We can still fight for a fossil fuel phase-out. We can still fight for a just transition,” she added.
‘The future that we want begins now’
As the first week of COP30 drew toward a close, the LWF organized a press conference at the COP venue, specifically to spotlight perspectives of young people on climate justice.
Maria Eduarda Müller of the IECLB speaks at a press conference organized by the LWF at the United Nations climate summit COP30. Photo: LWF/A. Hillert
Luiz Henrique Seidel, national coordinator of the IECLB youth council and moderator of the press conference, said “youth are no longer asking to be heard, we are demonstrating solutions, leading movements, and building the future in real time. Climate justice will not be achieved by promises alone, but through accountability, courage, and shared responsibility. We call on decision-makers at COP30 to act with the urgency that our generation and all generations to come deserve.”
Maria Eduarda Müller of the IECLB, one of the speakers, concluded: “Our survival can no longer depend on promises or climate policies just on paper. Actions must be taken now, because the past is history, the present is already gone, and the future that we want begins now.”
The LWF delegation to COP30 comprises church leaders—men, women and youth—from all continents, highlighting how advocacy has inspired local solutions to the climate emergency and policies that protect the most vulnerable. They join efforts with the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil and other faith partners in online and face-to-face meetings.
