Climate action

 

After the Sunday service at the UU Fellowship of Durango, the costumed participants made a parade and danced to the Monster Mash...then had treats that would have been in a "trunk or treat" but the weather took it inside the fellowship hall.

From the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (their October newsletter):

Visit UUSC’s Action Hub As part of the UUSC community, you help advance a world where all people can live with dignity and self-determination. Your solidarity is an essential part of this work. Watch our short video to find out what solidarity looks like in practice. Then, put your values into action by visiting our Action Center to explore the latest campaigns, sign petitions, and connect with policymakers.

Advancing Climate Justice at COP31

Each year, UUSC sponsors a cohort of our grant partners to participate in the Conference of Parties (COP) — the United Nations annual climate conference — where their experiences and expertise can be represented at the global stage. Next month, UUSC and our partners are traveling to Antalya, Turkey to advocate for urgent action to limit warming to 1.5°C and put human rights at the center of climate decision-making. 

Learn more about our priorities for COP31.

Each of us can play an active role in moving our world closer toward justice.

Thank you for your commitment to human rights — in the U.S. and around the world.

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UUSC’s History at COP

Each year, UUSC supports the attendance of representatives from our grassroots partners. We assist with funding, visa support, and strategic planning. Our collective typically includes Indigenous communities, faith-based organizations, and leaders from Pacific island nations.

Our advocacy centers on our FAIR framework:

• Fund Loss and Damage Initiatives: Advocating for wealthy nations to compensate communities for climate damages already suffered. The recently established Loss and Damage Fund represents a historic victory, though pledges fall short of actual community needs.
• Assess Progress Towards Climate Success: Supporting a rigorous process to honestly evaluate global progress toward limiting warming to 1.5°C.
• Increase Funding for Adaptation and Mitigation: Collaborate across nations to ensure that regions and locales worldwide have equitable access to funds for adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
• Raise Equity and Justice: Ensuring climate action addresses rather than perpetuates existing inequalities, with meaningful participation from climate-vulnerable groups.

Key Messages for COP31:

This COP has to be a point of inflection for the world community. The consistent demand of our partners has been to keep 1.5 alive, and we are now seeing the existential impacts that many have warned about. The negotiations over the last 10 years have shown a lack of political will, despite economic incentives (from the short to the long term) favoring renewable energy and sustainable solutions.

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• Abide by the ICJ Advisory Opinion by taking a human rights-based approach across all climate negotiations and prioritizing climate reparations
• Look to the examples set by frontline coalitions like Pacific Rising to create a model for intersectional, decolonial climate responses
• Prioritize the active participation and empowerment of frontline communities, especially women, youth, elderly people, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ people in decisions and policies that directly impact their lives
• Recognize Loss & Damage as the third pillar of climate action (alongside mitigation and adaptation)
• Ensure the Loss and Damage Fund has adequate financing and is operationalized though grants, not loans
• Make funding accessible and transparent to communities, not just states
• Respect traditional knowledge in climate governance and center the voices and leadership of indigenous peoples
• Center food system solutions based on peasant agroecology
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