Faith Communities Back Fossil Fuel Treaty

Something shifted in Santa Marta, northern Colombia, on 24 April. Faith communities gathered at the Colegio Diocesano San José for the Meeting of Spiritualities for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, an ecumenical and interfaith gathering convened as part of the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, hosted by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands. Their purpose was concrete: align their collective voice behind a binding Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Fossil Fuels, and deliver a signed declaration to the government representatives present.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) was among the organisers and participants. Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, did not soften the diagnosis: the climate emergency is not merely an environmental problem. “We are not living in the Anthropocene,” she said. “We are living in the “Capitolocene,” an era shaped by an extractivist capitalism that treats the Earth as a storehouse of assets and a field for endless profit.”

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