Category Archives: Climate Justice

"Another World is Possible," World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brasil (2005)

Pope Francis and Our Common Home

By Jim Hodgson

On this Earth Day, I want to share with you a reflection by Bishop Francisco Duque of the Anglican Church in Colombia. I worked with him in a larger team in one period (already a dozen years or more ago) of ecumenical efforts for peace with justice in Colombia. 

Indeed, it was during that work that I stood with friends in a coffee shop in Bogotá and watched news of the election of the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as pope on March 13, 2013.  I did not rejoice. All that I knew of Bergoglio was that he had opposed several of the initiatives of the governments of Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández as it expanded sex education in public schools and legalized same-sex marriage in 2010.

Images of St. Francis. Left: preaching to the birds. Right: “Make me an instrument of your peace / Bless your people, Lord” is one I saw in Real de Catorce, San Luis de Potosí, in October 2024.

But Pope Francis surprised me: first by choosing to be known by the name Francis, signalling he would follow St. Francis of Assisi, long admired for his inspiration to contemporary ecological commitment and for initiating dialogue with Muslim leaders during Christian Europe’s “crusades” in the Middle East. And then he surprised me again with steps that showed respect for LGBTQIA+ people: first, “Who am I to judge?”, and later with his openness to diverse voices heard through synods, his advocacy for peace, the rights of migrants and debt forgiveness. I can only wish he had done more with regard to the rights of women and pray that his successor can go further.

In Canada, Pope Francis will undoubtedly be remembered most for his “penitential pilgrimage” and encounters with Indigenous peoples in 2022. Despite resistance from most of Canada’s Catholic bishops, he came, offered a (not fully accepted) apology, and gave truth and reconciliation efforts a dramatic push forward in public awareness.

But I think his lasting global legacy will be his way of holding faithful action for social justice and action for ecological justice together coherently. Here’s what Bishop Duque had to say.

Left: Bishop Duque at a Methodist assembly in Medellín in 2012. Right: Pope Francis meets representatives of social movements in 2024.

Francis, pope of Amazonia and our common home

Francisco Duque

The world mourns the loss of a spiritual leader who transcended borders, creeds and generations. Pope Francis not only was the first Latin American pontiff. He was, above all, the pope of the Amazon and caretaker of our Common Home. His legacy, immense and profoundly humanist, will remain inscribed in the planet’s memory as a prophetic voice that urges us to hear the clamour of the earth and the cry of the poor as a single call.

From the time of the publication of his encyclical Laudato Si’ in 2015, Pope Francis illuminated the ways of global ecological awareness. With valiant and committed language, he denounced the structural causes of environmental collapse, unlimited resource extraction, climate injustice and indifference toward the suffering of communities that are most vulnerable, especially those who live in the lungs of the world: tropical forests, the Amazon in particular. 

His spiritual leadership was also political and ethical. He convened scientists, Indigenous leaders, activists and religious authorities from around the world to make a new pact between humanity and nature. He promoted an integral ecology that did not separate the environment from the social. He recognized in Indigenous peoples that they are millennial guardians of wisdom. His encouragement of the Synod of the Amazon in 2019 marked a before and after: Amazonia was heard in the heart of the Vatican, not as a forgotten periphery but as a vital centre for the future of the planet.

From the Inter-Religious Initiative for the Tropical Forests (IRI-Colombia), we hold up a prayer of gratitude and hope. Gratitude for his strong words, for his planetary vision, for having returned to the faith its active dimension of protection of creation. Hope because the fertile seeds he planted will continue to bear fruit in the struggles of those who do not resign ourselves to ecocide or silence in the face of injustice.

Pope Francis leaves us a road map for humanity. There will not be peace without environmental justice. There will be no future without forests. There will be no reconciliation without a deep ecological conversion. His legacy challenges governments, businesses, religions and people. His voice remains alive, inspiring a global inter-religious movement that is committed to life. In these days of farewell, we echo his own question, charged with urgency and tenderness:

“What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to children who are now growing up?” (LS 160).?”

Thank you, Pope Francis, for reminding us that care for Amazonia is an act of faith, love and justice.

Disappointment and fury in the wake of failed climate talks—and hope for the road ahead

by Jim Hodgson

“I am infuriated to come home to the aftermath of six typhoons that have struck the Philippines in the space of just four weeks with basically zero gains from COP29,” said Patricia Mungcal, a young climate advocate who serves as humanitarian manager with the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. 

“I will be telling thousands of Filipino families who were devastated by these strong typhoons that world leaders have left us to suffer the heaviest impacts of the climate crisis and disregarded our demands for finance and reparations. This failure to address loss and damage is a grave disregard of our human dignity and rights. We charge this failure of COP29 to the moral bankruptcy of the rich, polluting nations.”

News from Philippines and (right) Patricia Mungcal (screenshot from WCC video)

At the recent climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, world leaders failed miserably in their response to the climate crisis and its consequences. Of the $1.3 trillion of climate finance that independent experts estimate will be required annually by 2030, the UN climate conference agreed to provide just $300bn every year – by 2035 (Progressive International newsletter, Dec. 3).

Meanwhile, governments around the globe (including Canada) are still ploughing billions of dollars into fossil fuel subsidies to shelter citizens from higher energy costs, but that comes with a fiscal burden and impedes the goal of reducing overall use.

And Philippines had six typhoons. In the Canadian Rockies, Jasper townsite burned—just days after I had written about climate disasters in British Columbia.

What is to be done?

More often now, we are seeing the connection between the climate crisis and the growing indebtedness of the so-called “highly indebted poor countries” (HIPC). And proposals for a new international financial architecture are once again getting attention. 

In June, Pope Francis pressed leading economists and world finance ministers to support new mechanisms to ease foreign debt, lamenting that “poorly managed globalization” has deprived millions of people of a “dignified future.”

“Ecological debt and foreign debt are two sides of the same coin that mortgages the future,” the pope said. “For this reason, dear friends, the Holy Year of 2025, to which we are heading, calls us to open our minds and hearts to be able to untie the knots of the ties that strangle the present, without forgetting that we are only custodians and stewards, not masters.”

The focus of this Jubilee Year is gaining ecumenical and inter-faith support. In Canada, KAIROS will lead a Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee campaign, in step with global debt relief efforts. “These are inspired by the Jubilee tradition from the Book of Leviticus. Rooted in faith, Jubilee calls for the release of debts, liberation from servitude, and the return of seized lands—principles that resonate deeply in today’s world,” says KAIROS. This campaign aims to:

  • Cancel unjust debts. 
  • Establish a UN-led mechanism for debt resolution. 
  • Prevent future cycles of crippling debt.

The 2025 meeting of G7 (leaders of the richest countries) will be held June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta (southwest of Calgary).

“Confronting threats to the living planet.” Photo: Valter Muniz, WCC)

A “Manual for Mutiny”

The global Progressive International network, meanwhile, is presenting a Program of Action on the Construction of a New International Economic Order. It speaks of a “polycrisis”—the combination of the “old crises of debt, dependency and under-development” combined now with “an accelerating crisis of climate to threaten not only the developmental prospects of the South—but also, in the case of many small island states, their very existence.”

The Program of Action offers nearly three dozen measures across five broad sections: to leverage the South’s natural wealth, labor power, and collective voice in order to extract concessions from Northern partners; to bolster the sovereign development agenda by building Southern alternatives to Northern institutions; and to pool Southern knowledge, resources, and ingenuity in service of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

To that, I would add: Systemic failure demands system change.

What you can do

Keep an eye on KAIROS, of course, and on Development and Peace-Caritas Canada for ways to get involved in the new Jubilee campaigns.

I also want to share with you some suggestions from Katharine Hayhoe, a Canadian atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding the impacts of climate change on people and the planet.

“For climate action to happen at scale, conversations have to move beyond international summits to what’s happening in our communities, our workplaces, and our organizations. And there, change isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we catalyze,” she wrote after COP29.

She suggests starting conversations “about climate solutions where you work or study. Ask what your organization is already doing, and what more it could do—and share that with people around you, particularly those who can make decisions.”

That will be especially important as Canadians vote in a federal election in 2025, and as one party opts for simplistic slogans over serious conversations about climate policy.

After grief, the resistance begins

by Jim Hodgson

I feel some relief this morning by two newsletters from U.S. activists that arrived in my email.

One is from “Stop The Coup 2025,” a campaign to fight Project 2025 (the Republicans’ plan for the next Trump administration). It has a toolkit for community organizers that includes a section, “Spotlight on Risk Preparedness/Criminalization/Underground Survival Tips.” It discusses the importance of organizations and individuals taking steps now to prepare and assess their vulnerability to Project 2025’s agenda and learning from LGBTQIA+ activists in other places who have been forced to live and organize under the radar due to state-sanctioned criminalization.

Here’s a bit more information about Project 2025:

Project 2025 has a radical anti-democracy, anti-diversity, anti-gender agenda to:

  • systematically dismantle the federal government – a soft coup
  • give the next Republican president new “supreme powers” – an autocracy
  • use Executive Orders to “legally” reverse many of our civil rights
  • use the military to help clamp down on domestic dissent
  • criminalize & erase gender & LGBTQIA+ identity from government protection
  • reverse racial equality, attack diversity, and reverse environmental gains
  • replace secular education with Christian theocracy and a pro-life agenda
  • recruit and train 20,000 conservatives for government jobs 
  • Use “Schedule F” to remove 50,000 civil servants 
  • Require government “Loyalty Pledges” to an extremist right-wing agenda 
  • Reverse historic US defense policy of deterrence to offense 
  • Require US foreign policy, USAID to align with pro-life agenda 
  • LAUNCH THEIR 180-DAY ADMINISTRATION TAKEOVER ON January 20, 2025

The other newsletter that brought hope to my inbox today came from Codepink, the U.S. network of feminist peace activists. I’ve worked with them in the past to counter the harm caused by U.S. sanctions in Venezuela, Cuba and elsewhere, and some of my colleagues have worked with them for peace in the Korean peninsula and the Middle East. Part of the message today:

We don’t want to waste your time with platitudes about how everything will be okay or even talk about the breakdown of the election. We think it’s more useful to go off what we know for certain now: Donald Trump is going to be president in January. 

But, a majority of Americans oppose U.S. support for Israel, and don’t want their tax dollars funding weapons that murder innocent people and destroy the earth. A greater majority of Americans oppose the U.S. starting new wars. It’s okay to feel deflated and discouraged, but don’t forget that the people are on our side – all we have to do is reach them.  

We will continue to do what we have always done: educate by exposing horrific violence carried out by those in power, activate a movement for peace, and cultivate local communities that represent the world we want to live in. Solidarity is our best friend. Finding new and creative ways to scratch at power is our path forward.

Political signs of the times at a rest stop near Junction, Texas.

Last time, and this time: concern for rights of refugees

Back in 2016, I was in Antofagasta, Chile, when I learned that Donald Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton and won the U.S. election. The news was unexpected, just like now. 

I was in Chile’s far north to meet and show solidarity with Chilean Methodists who were working with migrants who had come from Colombia and other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, including Haiti. 

Indeed, a great deal of my personal and professional life has been devoted to work with refugees and other people who are forced to flee their homelands because of various political, economic and environmental causes. 

Caravans of migrants from many countries continue to cross Chiapas on their way north, holding out hope that they might score a formal U.S. refugee application before January 20 when Trump, who promises mass deportations, will take power. (Images: La Jornada, Mexico). 

Now I am in north-western Chiapas, having crossed in recent weeks several of the “red states” where support for Trump is strong.

In the wake of the election, pundits point out that Trump weaponized ‘fake news.’ He played to machismo and racists and to people who haven’t a clue what being Trans even means. That he won over a smart, articulate, experienced woman of colour after being convicted of crimes and successfully sued for sexual assault is an indictment of U.S. democracy.

Some, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, point as well to the Democratic Party establishment which again defended the status quo. “It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.”

As ever, don’t expect the Democratic Party to save us. Now is the time for grassroots action.

For Natasha Lennard, writing in The Intercept, the answer is radical action from the grassroots: 

“Far-right policies and parties tend to win the day when so-called centrists take up conservative platforms to purportedly capture disaffected white voters and thus keep the far-right at bay; the upshot is treating conservative nationalism as the fulcrum of all politics. This is what the Harris campaign did, particularly when it came to immigration. At best, as with Britain’s currently ruling Labour Party, the Tories might have lost, but right-wing politics have been reconfigured as the normalized center.”