The 2019 United Nations climate negotiations, COP25, are over—and they did not go well, despite being the longest negotiation session since the first COP 25 years ago.
However, the annual COP event is actually just one aspect of the ongoing international climate discussion, and the failure of this year’s COP will add to the urgency and focus nations bring to the process in 2020.
As Executive Secretary for UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa said this week, “It is important to conduct an honest and realistic assessment of what happened so that appropriate measures can be taken by the international community in guiding the next crucial steps in the multilateral climate process next year.”
Many of those next crucial steps will take place “behind-the-scenes,” in diplomatic conversations, scientific reports, and meetings. It is important that US faith communities maintain their focus as well.
To help guide the faith community’s conversations about climate change during 2020, the Texas Interfaith will be releasing a 6-part study series, suitable for Lent or any other time of the year, featuring video interviews with people of faith and other civil society participants at this year’s COP.
We are able to produce this series using the hundreds of hours of video we collected in Madrid, thanks to our media partnership with The Austin Chronicle and the tireless behind-the-scenes work of our video gurus, Eric Graham and Robert Moorhead. This week, Eric, Rob, and I were honored to sit down with Chronicle Editor-in-Chief Kimberly Jones for an interview on the Chronicle’s radio show, which you can listen to here.
All that thinking about behind-the-scenes activity is helping me to center myself for 2020, which promises to be a tough year for climate negotiations and a lot of other things. Reflecting on “behind-the-scenes” reminds me of one of my favorite hymns, Once to Every Man and Nation (or “Soul and Nation” for those who prefer). I first sang this hymn as a second-grade Chorister, and it’s never fallen off my top-10 list. Today, I’m meditating on the fourth stanza:
Tho’ the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;
Tho’ her portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.
I hope God’s presence behind the dim unknown gives you the courage and grit to move forward into 2020 with a strong sense of your own agency, and affection for the authenticity of your unique story.