National Climate Demonstration in Dublin
The Council on Social Responsibility of the Methodist Church in Ireland (CSR) invite Methodists to participate in the National Climate Demonstration in Dublin this Saturday as part of the 'Faith For Climate Action' group.
On Saturday 15th November we will gather at 12.30pm at the Garden of Remembrance for prayer with others. We will then participate in the National Demonstration as it sets off from there at 1.00pm, finishing with a rally outside Leinster House.
______
Maureen Rowan, Methodist Rep to Eco Congregation and member of CSR, writes about the Demo and COP 30:
We are seeing much media coverage this week of COP 30 which is happening in Belém, Brazil from 10th to 21st November.
Many faith communities are travelling to Belém, which can seem like an expensive waste, given the scepticism surrounding the event. The possibility of progress on climate action looks increasingly remote amid ever deteriorating geopolitics and the denouncement by Donald Trump of the climate crisis as a ‘great hoax’. Yet, Guardian reporter, Fiona Harvey, who has been covering COPs for 19 years asserts that, unwieldy as they are, COPs are the only forum where the whole world gathers to talk about the climate crisis. They can be seen as the ‘least worst’ way of making progress. This COP 30 is regarded as a final rallying point for countries to deliver more ambitious ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDC), pledges on emissions cuts, plans for adaptation, climate finance and support for vulnerable developing countries.
For faith leaders, that delivery has to go beyond technology, politics and economics to include radical changes of lifestyle and transformation of human consciousness.
The Laudato Si Movement seeks to provide a moral counterpoint to NDCs, based on theological imperatives of creation care. It will bring its ‘People’s Determined Contributions’ (PDC) to COP, stories of practical actions by people of faith and goodwill, taken where political commitments have stalled. Lorna Gold, Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, describes these as “the people’s answer — a moral uprising for our common home.”
Bishop Prof. Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, of the World Council of Churches describes COP 30 as a “kairos moment that demands we choose transformation over destruction, solidarity over extraction, and life over profit……This is not simply about transitioning to cleaner energy; it is about ecological metanoia - transforming our hearts, our economies, and our civilizations.”
We can take that hope forward into action alongside other faith communities at this National Climate demonstration on Saturday 15th.
These moral and ethical challenges are far more difficult than recycling and switching the lights off. They bring us back to the hope in Romans, “that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God “ (8:21)