Anglicans at COP30

A sermon for the congregation of St. Stephen, Summerland on Sunday, November 16th, 2025, the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost by the Very Rev. Ken Gray

Early in the Spring of 2002, while rector of this church I received a call from ecojustice colleagues at the Anglican General Synod in Toronto. “Would you be willing to travel to South Africa to join other Anglicans at a United Nations conference?” they asked. I quickly said “sure; sounds fun.” And it was. The rest, as they say, is history. That single opportunity changed the shape of my priestly ministry forever, an opportunity which continues to inspire and motivate me even now.

What an adventure that conference was. The Conference of Parties (COP) has met annually since 1992 in order to “unite nations” around a global climate accord called the “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” (UNFCCC). Some of these meetings have had positive outcomes, including Johannesburg in 2002, and Montreal in 2005 which I also attended. The 2015 conference in Paris is considered the best to date, whereas the 2009 Copenhagen conference is remembered as “chaotic,” and disastrous.

In light of my limited and now rather ancient experience of these meetings, I continue to follow COP meetings each and every year. In the lead up to the conferences, expectation and hope run high, only to be shattered at various points along the way. There are so many national, corporate, and political ambitions at stake, which clash, seemingly at every opportunity. I am shocked to read a report in The Guardian which says notes that Fossil fuel lobbyists outnumber all Cop30 delegations except Brazil. One in every 25 participants at 2025 UN climate summit is a fossil fuel lobbyist.  

Such a vested interest is one reason the track record of COP meetings is so abysmal when viewed  through the lens of justice for the poor, and considering the health of the planet. UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke for many of us when he opened COP30 with the following words:

“The hard truth is that we have failed to ensure we remain below 1.5 degrees [previously agreed in Paris in 2025]. Science now tells us that a temporary overshoot beyond the 1.5 limit – starting at the latest in the early 2030s – is inevitable. We need a paradigm shift to limit this overshoot’s magnitude and duration and quickly drive it down. Even a temporary overshoot will have dramatic consequences. It could push ecosystems past irreversible tipping points, expose billions to unlivable conditions, and amplify threats to peace and security. Every fraction of a degree means more hunger, displacement, and loss – especially for those least responsible.  This is moral failure – and deadly negligence.”

So I gotta ask, in response to the secretary general, and so many others, who cares? And who listens? Who will move us beyond a business-as-usual economic, industrial, and financial modus operandi globally and nationally?

Canadian Anglicans, ecumenical partners, and Indigenous representatives are present at COP30. Most flew there; some travelled by land, and a few by boat. I would like to share some initial descriptions of what is unfolding at COP30. The Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative (KAIROS) which includes Anglicans is there in force including Silvia Vasquez-Olguin who writes:

“Simply put, COP30 begins with a question that many of us in Belém (Amazonia, Brazil) are asking: Where can we find people debating the issues and potential solutions to the climate crisis? Many people here are responsible for creating, sustaining, accelerating, or ignoring these problems. Here at COP30 in Belém do Pará, big oil industries and mining companies are financing this climate conference where many here are searching for solutions to the problems these companies created.

We wonder the same thing. Here we can find the people suffering from the impacts of climate change while debating how to solve a crisis they did not create. They have not benefited from the resources that have enriched North America and Europe. They likely will never use the newest cellphones made from rare minerals that were asleep under their soil until recently. But they travelled long distances, flew the sky and sailed the rivers to get here and have a say in a crisis created by others.”

The Rev. Emilie Teresa Smith is a priest of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster. Trained at Vancouver School of Theology where she was mentored by friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg, having lived in South America, is multi-lingual, and a born activist, Emile writes theologically about the climate crisis:

“This is not just a political or economic crisis. This [crisis is] moral and civilizational. Those in the ‘global north’ are invited to an eco-conversion. How are we going to relate, to each other, to God, to this noble earth? The climate crisis is based on broken relationships. How are we going to change these? Incremental changes are not enough. As a church we have a voice, we are called, to call for an end to the myth of limitless growth, of faith in extractive industries as a model for human living. We stand for an equitable energy transition rejecting false narratives and false stories of carbon offsets, “green” mining. The poor are not an afterthought.”

One final voice, not distinctly Canadian, is Inside Climate News who writes:

“For all its talk of unity, the climate summit has struggled to deliver because the talks mirror the global inequalities they are meant to fix [. . . The COP process] hasn’t made much progress because it still fails to serve the countries that have contributed least to the problem but are suffering the most from it.”

So if the above represent the voice of faith-based witnesses, what might Holy Scripture add to our reflection? Today we hear from the Book of Isaiah (65:17-25):

“I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress.”

Writing from that period of Jewish history, either near or after the end of the exile, when people from the Judean Kingdom could finally return to war-ravaged Jerusalem (for an image think of Gaza in 2025) the prophet is extremely hopeful and joyful despite recent experience:

“No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

The prophet’s words resonate deeply for me as I hope for real change, for justice for the poor, and especially for Indigenous persons and communities. Can you imagine with me, even for a moment, the frustration and pain those Indigenous protesters (some likely Anglican; our church is very strong in Brazil and Amazonia) who stormed the Conference Hall earlier this week feel. They continue to be excluded from real conversations about their own future. As the late liberation theologian, Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez wrote: “We Drink from our own Wells.” All Indigenous peoples ask is to be heard. They cry in every way possible: “Listen to us.” Isaiah leaves us with a final image, one of true and lasting community, one of justice that will lead to peace, an image of a restored community, where the serpent of Genesis becomes dust so that lion and lamb can live together. These are powerful words, to which I invites us all, to listen:

“The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”

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