By Jean D’Cunha
Asian bishops are taking serious steps to address ecological and climate issues after the Central Committee of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences, the principal body implementing the decisions of the plenary assembly endorsed an action plan to localize the outcomes of COP 30 in Asia.
On Mar 5, the Central Committee, which includes the federation president, Archbishop Cardinal Filipe Neri Ferrão of Goa, and the executive secretaries of its nine specialized offices, endorsed the plan outlined in a joint statement prepared by the federation’s two offices: the Climate Change Desk of the Office of Human Development and the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.
The plan aligns with the 50-year-old federation’s mission framework, which emphasizes a triple dialogue with the poor and with diverse cultures and religions and has now expanded to include a dialogue with creation, prophetically centering environmental and climate justice.
Defending the environment and all living and climate-affected people, as exemplified by localizing post-COP 30 outcomes, is deemed both an existential enterprise and a practice of faith.
It is also the direct offshoot of a four-member official FABC delegation that participated in COP 30, together with numerous men and women from civil society, and of the strong advocacy of the Churches of the Global South, of which FABC was a critical part.
The 30th Global Conference of Parties (COP 30) represented a significant intersection between high-level climate policy deliberations and Catholic social teaching, specifically the principles of Pope Francis’ environmental documents, Laudato Si’ and Laudato Deum.
With the Vatican leading by example as the first state to commit to carbon neutrality by 2030, and the ambitious advocacy of the Churches of the Global South, including the FABC, the Church served as a moral arbiter in favor of true ecological stewardship, pushing back against fossil fuel production/expansion, deforestation, the “financialization of nature” and “green capitalism,” and resistance of wealthy nations to pay their ecological debt.
The summit achieved several milestones that provide a foundation for future Asian advocacy, including financial commitments to mobilize $1.3 trillion annually by 2035 for developing nations and activating the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF); the adoption of a Plan of Action on Women’s Empowerment that integrates the priorities of diverse groups of women into climate risk governance and recognizes the leadership of women of indigenous, rural, and Afro descent; the Just Transition Mechanism to protect workers during the shift away from fossil fuels, and the establishment of 59 Belém Adaptation indicators to track national progress in climate safety, and ensure accountability.
While we have what it largely takes to contain the planetary crises, COP 30 exposed a tragic lack of political will. Shortfalls included the Ambition Gap, the Fossil Fuel and Halt Deforestation deadlock. Current global commitments still put the planet on a trajectory toward 2°C of warming, failing the 1.5°C Paris Agreement threshold.
Negotiations failed to reach a binding agreement on a fossil fuel “phase-out,” settling instead for the ambiguous language of “transitioning away,” while also failing to secure firm targets for halting deforestation.
The Asian bishops’ federation will leverage its moral heft in partnership with the universal church, global and regional actors, to ensure the “COP of Implementation” yields results on the ground.
This includes supporting the Brazil Presidency’s efforts to end deforestation and ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels, as well as the Government of Colombia and the Netherlands-led efforts on legal and socio-economic action on fossil fuel phase-out.
The following actions constitute the Church’s strategic response to localize climate justice:
- Data-driven insights: Generation and dissemination of disaggregated data (by sex, age, and vulnerability) to ensure that climate strategies are informed by the specific priorities of diverse, affected communities rather than broad assumptions.
- Inventory of good practices: Multimedia documentation of environmental successes and workable practices to gauge impact, use in awareness-raising, and for customized expansion and scale-up
- People-centered policy advocacy: Integrating evidence-based findings, including those on women and girls, into the design and implementation of national and regional climate and related sectoral strategies and Church policies at all levels, supported by targets, clear indicators, and dedicated budgets.
- Comprehensive capacity building of church leaders, parishioners, decision-makers, and grassroots practitioners on people-centered, woman-responsive climate policy design and the practical implementation of women/girl-responsive strategies.
- Inclusive leadership and participation of vulnerable groups, particularly women, in climate decision-making, both in secular and church-related climate governance.
- Scaling the Eco-Education: Eco Ambassadors’ training program across Asia, rooted in people-centered, interfaith, political-economy, and application-oriented approaches.
- Independent Monitoring with partners through national and regional mechanisms to monitor the “people-centeredness” and ambition of national climate strategies, which inform evidence-based advocacy.
- Bold advocacy in partnership with global, regional, and national actors to pressure governments to adopt ambitious roadmaps to: phase out fossil fuels; end exploitative mining, deforestation, the financialization of nature, and green capitalism; ensure that wealthy nations pay their “ecological debt” and protect vulnerable climate-affected people, including women and girls.
- Financing and debt justice that focuses on the adaptation and loss and damage funds (LDFs) to ensure grants that are non-debt generating; that a LDF quantifies and pays for “non-economic losses” – much of which affect women, and that these funds are earmarked and provide direct, simplified access for vulnerable climate-affected people.
- Ecumenical and liturgical celebration wherein the “Season of Creation” will be used as a bridge for interfaith cooperation. A significant liturgical goal is to have September 1st (World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation) elevated to an official Liturgical Feast of Creation within the Church calendar. – UCA News
* Dr. Jean D’Cunha is a gender expert with a continuing body of work on women’s labor migration, gender, climate change, and conflict. She worked with UN Women in senior management and technical roles worldwide and retired as Senior Global Advisor on International Migration and Decent Work. She advises the FABC/CBCI on climate issues. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
