A Canadian Anglican priest who attended the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, found ongoing obstacles to climate action in the form of greed—but also inspiration in organizing by the Christian community and Indigenous protesters.
COP30 took place in Belém, Brazil Nov. 10-21, bringing together representatives from nearly 200 countries. Bishop of the Amazon Marinez Bassotto, primate of the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, played a major role in a parallel “People’s Summit” to the official conference. Bassotto hosted a tapiri—a word in the Indigenous Tupi language meaning a place where communities gather for conversations—at the Catedral Anglicana de Santa Maria on Nov. 16 with ecumenical and interfaith leaders.
The Rev. Angelique Walker-Smith, World Council of Churches (WCC) president from North America, presented the WCC’s Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025-2034) at the tapiri. In June, WCC member churches—which include the Anglican Church of Canada—formally adopted the decade-long commitment, which calls for profound transformation to care for creation and protect those who suffer from climate change.
“We bring our spirit, but we also act in the world, and that is why we’re in Belém at the COP meeting these weeks,” Walker-Smith said.
Among those in attendance was the Rev. Emilie Smith, rector of St. Barnabas Anglican Church in New Westminster, B.C. and co-president of the Óscar Romero International Christian Network in Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America (SICSAL), an ecumenical group that advocates for social and environmental justice. Smith, who travelled to the conference in a pilgrimage starting Aug. 16, described a mixed experience at COP30.
She found cause for optimism in grassroots organizing efforts, participating in an Indigenous-led demonstration on Nov. 15 of tens of thousands of people calling for climate action from negotiators. On Nov. 18, Indigenous protesters forced their way into the Parque da Cidade, the COP30 compound, demanding an end to oil exploration, illegal mining and logging on their lands before being expelled by UN security personnel.
In contrast, Smith noted the large presence of fossil fuel lobbyists at COP30—one in every 25 participants, according to the Kick Big Polluters Out coalition—and the contradictory actions of leaders, such as Brazilian President Lula da Silva recently approving exploratory oil drilling in the sea off the Amazon.
“It’s really a complicated situation,” Smith said. “But … what else are we going to do? … Being the witness to this [COP30] and participating in this is the best we’ve been able to come up with so far. There’s Indigenous people who were even breaking down doors to get in and protesting and I’m with them. They’re just not getting enough voice and enough representation.”
Smith found inspiration in a sign at the Nov. 15 rally bearing the Portuguese-language slogan “Nós somos a resposta”, which roughly translates to “We are the answer.” Prior to attending the conference, she met with campesinos—peasants or rural residents—in a nearby river community and went fishing with them, prompting her to recall gospel stories of Jesus’s fishing miracles.
“When they say we are the answer, this is the answer,” Smith said. Campesinos are “living in right relationship with the earth,” she added. “They just need to be protected …
“I really believe that we a unified Christian community have an answer to this situation, because the problem is greed, basically. It’s just not something that’s inevitable or necessary. It’s just based on the desire of a few very sick individuals to have more money than they would ever be able to spend in their lives.”
“How do we get from where we are to what we want? … We get mad,” Smith said.
In the final agreement that emerged from the conference, negotiators dropped all reference to fossil fuels, by far the largest contributor to climate change.
