Something Huge Just Happened!

This Great Idea is a response to the incredible UN decision to uphold last year’s International Court of Justice decision, ‘that States have an obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions’, underscoring, ‘Member States’ responsibility to protect their own people from what is an ‘escalating climate crisis”‘.

This ruling, while not binding, carries ‘significant legal and moral authority’.

How to bring this to your congregation?

~Read The Guardian’s report on the July, 2025 ruling here.

~Read Matthew 25:31-46

Discuss the importance of this decision:

  • Who brought the case to the UN?
  • How important is it that their voices were heard and affirmed in the decision?
  • What did/does this ruling mean for climate refugees and others who are feeling the effects of climate change more severely than Western, white peoples, particularly in the US?

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~Share the UN’s write-up about the April, 2026 confirmation decision: General Assembly backs historic World Court climate crisis ruling.

~Read The Guardian’s report on the confirmation decision: UN Backs Historic Climate Crisis Ruling, Despite US Attempts to Stop Resolution.

~Read Luke 18:1-8

  • Wonder about the joy the people of Vanuatu and other island nations peoples are experiencing as a result of this decision.
  • Wonder why particularly white people in the US assume they are removed from the impacts of these decisions.
  • Wonder why the US joined nations with whom it is at war – Russia (sort of) and Iran (absolutely), specifically – to oppose this ruling.

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~Read Rebecca Solnit’s, This May Well Be the Most Consequential Case in the History of Humanity.

~Read Revelation 3:14-22

  • Wonder how your community might be impacted if your immediate community became less dependent on fossil fuels.
  • Wonder what your community might look like if wind and solar became primary sources of energy.
  • Wonder how Christian congregations might be catalysts for spiritual and emotional renewal in our communities, shifting us away from the idolatry of consumerism that drives the extractive economy.
  • Wonder how your children and their children will be impacted if we do not make these shifts. What stories will you tell them about your action or inaction?