Tag: quaker

23 February 2025, Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves. Multi-Faith Summit at Friends House

Join us for an afternoon of panel discussions and workshops, spiritual connection, music, dance and poetry, creative work, and stalls showcasing the work that faiths are doing for the planet. Hosted by Faith for the Climate, Christian Climate Action and Quakers in Britain.

The event is free, and the venue is accessible for wheelchair users and people with other mobility issues. If there will be other barriers to you joining us (e.g. travel costs or travel schedules for your journey or being responsible for children), please email mobilise@faithfortheclimate.org.uk.

We want to learn so that we can improve the events that we organise. If you could please answer the monitoring questions when you sign-up that would be really appreciated!

Breakouts

There will be an opportunity to choose from 4 breakout sessions to take part in:

1) Healing Ourselves During Challenging Times (a series of activities you can do at your own pace) – nurturing your existing spiritual resources and learning from other traditions.

2) Bridging the Divide: How Faiths Can Come Together (panel and discussion) – building new, and refreshing existing, faith connections.

3) Starting With Our Local Environment (panel and discussion) – hear from groups already taking local action about their projects and how faith values connect with this.

4) National and International campaigns (panel and discussion) – learning about campaigns that are focused on justice-based action on climate.

You will be able to indicate which stream you would like to take part in when you register.

Agenda

12:30 – 13:30 Registration and stalls

13:30 – 14:00 Welcome, housekeeping and opening

14:00 – 14:45 Plenary

14:45 – 15:05 Break

15:05 – 16:35 Breakout streams

16:35 – 16:55 Break

16:55 – 17:15 Regrouping

17:15 – 18:00 Performance and closing

Link

Faith for the Climate

Faith leaders urge David Lammy to show leadership on climate

Faith leaders hold vigil outside Foreign Office, calling on government to show leadership on climate justice

Source: Quakers in Britain

At a vigil outside the Foreign Office on Tuesday, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh, and Buddhist representatives handed in a letter to Foreign Secretary David Lammy. Catholic signatories included Bishop John Arnold (Salford), spokesman on the environment for the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, and Colette Joyce, the Westminster Justice and Peace Co-ordinator.

The letter asks the foreign secretary to take the initiative at upcoming COP29 by contributing new funding to the International Loss and Damage Fund.

It’s time for the UK – and its wealthiest polluters – to pay our fair share- faith leaders

It must do this in the form of grants not loans and by taxing pollution and wealth, rather than repurposing official development assistance, the letter, co-ordinated by Quakers in Britain and the Faith for the Climate network, says.

The 21 signatories call on the UK government to champion a new “collective quantified goal” for climate finance for developing countries, including sufficient funding to respond to loss and damage.

“Our call to Make Polluters Pay is partly about our history,” the letter says. “When we factor in Britain’s colonial past, the UK is the fourth largest contributor to climate change.”

It is also about our present, faith leaders including Paul Parker, recording clerk of Quakers in Britain, write.

Two fossil fuel giants, Shell and BP, are based here, enjoying record-breaking profits.

“Meanwhile, many British households are struggling to heat their homes. At the same time, communities all around the world are being devastated by extreme weather events, such as flooding, super storms and forest fires.

“These inequalities need to be redressed, to acknowledge the intrinsic value of every living being on our precious and finite earth.”

The faith leaders conclude, “It’s time for the UK – and its wealthiest polluters – to pay our fair share.”

Read the full letter here