The World meets in Durban at the end of the year for another round of negotiations around a unified response to climate change. The stakes are high. Currently, the countries of the world have not agreed how they react to climate change together in the next years.

LWF Youth is going to be part of the conference with seven young people from around the communion together with a bigger group organized by the World Council of churches. Our approach is to look at the wider issues of justice and not to get lost in the technical details of the negotiations. Therefore, we are not going to spend most of our time in observing the talks but rather work on the future of a theological approach to ecological justice and what that may mean in the home contexts of the participants.

Therefore, also your ideas and contributions are needed. We are going to send out much more information in the following weeks.

And definitely, your governments need encouragement to get the job done in Durban. They are going to negotiate on the basis of a inter-governmental treaty called United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are two basic goals: (1) To mitigate the impact of climate change by minimizing the human contribution to climate, ie. reducing the output of Carbon Dioxide and other climate gases. (2) To adapt to the changing climate by financing for poorer countries measures like improving agriculture and preparation against disasters.

It would be highly important that the governments come up with a clear and binding outcome.