 So greetings and welcome to all who are joining us today for this webinar on the church's advocacy work on climate action. And today specifically on the issue of loss and damage. My name is geese mag and I serve as the director of Presbyterian World Service and Development based in Toronto, Canada. And I'm also serving on the board of the Canadian food grains bank as well as on the board of the act alliance. Bonjour et bienvenue à tous et à toutes. Le séminaire d'aujourd'hui sera interprété en français comme j'ai mentionné avant. Et vous n'avez qu'à choisir le français dans l'icône au bas de votre écran qui est en forme de globe et qui dit interpretation. Please note that today's webinar will be recorded so that many more people will be able to benefit from the knowledge shared at this webinar today. I'd like to pass the mic now to Carl, who works on climate finance issues with Canadian food grains bank, and he will get us started with a land acknowledgement. Thank you, Guy. So before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am here today on treaty one territory, the homeland of the Cree, Anishinaabe and Métis nations. I also acknowledge the many territories and lands across Turtle Island that you are joining us from. We are honored to be here as guests on this land that indigenous peoples have cared for and continue to care for. We thank them for allowing us to meet and learn together on their territories. I invite you to take a moment to think about where you presently live and honor the people of the land. Think about your relation to the place you live, work and interact. This is our inquiry to honor the past and present and to work toward reconciliation. May we abide by the treaties made with these nations and may we live well in the land together. And if you know the territory or land from which you are joining us today, I invite you to write it in the chat as part of this acknowledgement. And I will now introduce and turn it over to Reverend Tony Snow. So Reverend Tony Snow is a member of the Stony Nacoda First Nation. He currently works as the indigenous minister for the Chinook Winds region in southern Alberta and serves on the United Church of Canada climate advisory circle and with for the love of creation. As a traditional knowledge keeper, theologian and environmental activist. Tony has worked to protect the interests of First Nations in mediation, reclamation and traditional land use. Tony attended COP 25 and 26 with the UCC observer delegation in Madrid and Glasgow. So over to you, Reverend Snow for an opening prayer. Greetings and thank you. Welcome to everyone. So for me, the presence here is important reminder of the voices of indigenous people that have cared for our territories and lands, but will also suffer displacement and disenfranchisement in many ways from their connection to the land. I offer this prayer for us at this time. Something that we can share with one another. In our traditional way I light a smudge, which is a gathering of the medicinal plants and herbs of our sacred places and offer that as a blessing and purification for us as we gather in this space. So we are reminded of our connection to creator our connection to one another, how important that is for our well being and our way of being here today. Let us pray. What do you have your sugar them a con great spirit while contact mystery of all life. We live in the midst of all wonder and understanding, knowing our presence here as part of your eternal plan, knowing our presence here is part to we understand our place in the world of contributors to your creation story. And our impact reaches far beyond the individual contributions and exploitation that our impact has ramifications on your world, and on one another. For all those displaced to the ghettos of our community we seek apology for not being humanistic enough to quell the ongoing disturbances that alienate them from lands upon which you place your people, who are now our refugees. To hear their story as the people of this world came who came to Turtle Island, first to find reprieve from their oppression and to find sanctuary from a world in turmoil. We know that you have placed the original people here to share the land in our teachings. We know that we have done this through our teaching treaty and blessing ways. The pipe and the sacred fire, the water ceremonies and brushings, feasts and memorials, all ways to retain our teachings retain our instruction that come directly from you into our practices. To hear and heed the elders voices, their call for clarity and justice, moving us away from our distractions and misunderstandings, moving us beyond words into right, writing our relationships, which are our calling. Above all things, you have called us to be in relationship with one another with creation that we may hold on to the gift of this world and our oneness with it, because being in it is being with you. You have put words into our hearts of this gathering to hold within our thoughts, our purpose and calling to be your children. Part of the great creation story that is ongoing all around us for which we are called to do our part. Thank you. Thank you Reverend Tony. Appreciate your words. So why are we here today? And what are we trying to achieve? Well, last year at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP, when you hear COP, that means the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The world leaders agreed to set up a fund on loss and damage, recognizing that many countries are greatly affected by the impacts of extreme weather events that are a result of climate change. These countries have typically not been contributing much to the emissions of greenhouse gases, so it's somewhat unfair that they have to experience the impact of the disasters on their own. We acknowledge that there's also climate related disasters here in Canada, such as floods and forest fires that have worsened due to climate change, and therefore there's also loss and damage in Canada. However, Canada has the means and resources to respond to its disasters. Sometimes with little help from its friends, like we saw some international firefighters come to our assistance last year. But the global fund that we'll be discussing today is meant to assist countries that don't have the financial means and resources to respond to the impact of climate induced disasters. So today we won't be focusing on the Canadian situation, but rather on how Canadian Christians have been instrumental in getting the world to set up a fund for poorer countries to access in times of need. This webinar is meant to be an awareness raising exercise to understand how churches actions in advocacy do deliver results over time and do make a difference. We want to affirm the fact that churches advocacy does have an impact. You're not expected to know much about the issue of loss and damage as you join this webinar. The whole point is actually to make you better versed on the issue after this webinar and that you will be prepared to take action yourself to help move to the next steps of this work. This webinar is a collaborative effort between the Act Alliance, Canadian food grains bank, Kairos, and for the love of creation. All ecumenical coalitions and alliances working towards a more just world. The organization that I represent is a member of all of those bodies, each one having their own area of focus and their own strengths. Let me introduce them briefly. The Act Alliance is composed of more than 140 faith based member organizations around the world, organized in regional and national forums in 120 countries, working in long term development advocacy and humanitarian assistance. One of Act's programmatic priorities is climate justice and Act has an office in New York City, for example, where it contributes at the highest UN levels. The Canadian food grains bank is a Canadian coalition of 15 member churches working to end world hunger. It's active in the global conversations around climate justice and climate finance. Kairos is a Canadian ecumenical movement for ecological justice and human rights, formed in 2001 by bringing together 10 previous inter-church coalitions and Kairos's justice commitments reach back over 40 years. For the love of creation is a Canadian initiative that brings together faith bodies and faith based organizations in Canada under a unified banner to mobilize education, reflection, action and advocacy for climate justice. We welcome those who are joining us from all these different parts of Canada today, and maybe some from other parts in the world. We are bringing together panelists. We were hoping from as far away as the Pacific Islands, but the climate has decided differently tonight. We'll hear more about that. We have assembled people to help us to see how critical the issue of loss and damage is and to open our minds and hearts on it. In order to do this, I'd like to introduce our moderator for today's panel, Joy Kennedy. Joy is a longtime climate activist, former national church and ecumenical staff person on ecological justice, including at Kairos. A veteran of many cops representing the World Council of Church's working group on climate change and active with the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the UN FCCC, which I am challenged to remember what this means, but she will tell us. She currently chairs the Board of Directors of the Climate Action Network, Raison Action Klima Canada, and is on the Greater Toronto Area Board of the Student Christian Movement. As a grandmother, her biggest concern is for the intergenerational climate justice and a sustainable future for all. Thank you for your participation today. And without further ado, I hand the mic over to you, Joy. Thanks very much, Guy. That UNFCCC is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It's a mouthful, I know. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here with you all tonight or today in some parts of the world. I acknowledge, first of all, that I'm a white settler woman residing in a privileged part of the world known as Tecoronto or Toronto in what is currently called Canada. And as others will identify in the chat on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit and are covered by the Dish with One Spoon Wampum Covenant. And I think that's such an important vision, the dish with one spoon. We are one world which feeds all of us. And so we keep that vision in mind as we go through this evening. Now, my remarks will be in part reflecting the perspectives of the global ecumenical community, principally through the lens of working with the World Council of Churches and partners over some decades now. I want to start off saying the prophet Isaiah declares in chapter 58 verse 12, if you must have it, you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. The related words reparations and restitution imply the need to provide the resources to fix what is broken. Now my father was an insurance agent, so we were often made aware of the suffering of those experiencing losses and damages. But those were on an individual and family scale, not the enormous societal scales we're witnessing unfold with the rapid acceleration of climate induced impacts around the globe. How can the resulting losses and damages, especially suffered by the poorest peoples, who have contributed the least to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? How can they be justly and fairly and urgently redressed? And those must include loss and damage beyond economic and material damages to cultural, language, spiritual and identity losses. A basic sustainability operating principle is do no harm, followed with the prevention of harm, and then adaptation for resiliency to a changed reality, and then recovering from harms. If I'm responsible for creating harm to someone, I must make restitution for the damage, repair that broken window, or the relationships, the situation, the injustice, the loss. When we in the faith communities, along with civil society, advocate for climate justice, yes mitigation is necessary, yes adaptation is essential now, but what happens when those are ineffective, too slow, and simply not enough? That's why our advocacy focus has intensified for a distinct track on loss and damage. And I'll show you my mask from one of the cops where we were advocating for resources for loss and damage. When powerful nations like ours refuse to admit their history of doing harm through their continued reliance on fossil fuel economies and as human induced climate catastrophes accelerate, faith communities who are often responding to crises directly on the ground cannot help but demand accountability and direct funding for those most vulnerable experiencing losses and damages. This goes beyond traditional humanitarian disaster relief, but acknowledges unequal responsibility for what in UN language is called the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities. That's CBDR and RC. Our member churches in the global south remind us that those differences matter and must be factored into our analysis and our advocacy. We had hoped to hear some of those voices tonight, but the impacts of climate change and a major cyclone happening right now in the Pacific are preventing one of our strongest partner voices. So we will we will honor that and and grieve that inability for our friends from the Pacific Conference of churches to actually be with us. Words matter. One of the successes I think is that the concept of donor recipient is finally shifting to contributor partner to things like the green climate fund. This is more about mutual sharing in just and equitable solutions than charity. Similarly, it is important to note that the framing of quote national disasters has shifted to human and climate induced impacts or disasters with the onus, not on nature, but on us, but not on all of us. As some are more responsible than others for the situation today. We're also moving from climate change to climate emergency climate catastrophe and global warming to global heating or boiling or baking to better emphasize the existential threat we face. Whatever we call it, we need to quickly wake up and demand our governments act for the survival of life on earth as we know it. And for those who succeed this generation. Isaiah started that passage I quoted with the vision of hope that your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. The reality though, of course, has been well known since the beginning of the climate negotiations. Why hasn't there been an agreed solution? Especially around paying up for loss and damage. In truth, the wealthy countries have resisted any remedy and refused to admit their role so that they cannot actually be held quote liable for necessary remediation. We in the faith communities have continually pointed out the inequities and the obfuscations and downright lies, but for years our faith voices seem to fall on deaf ears. Nevertheless, we continue to insist that honestly addressing the inequalities is essential to bringing about any reconciliation and hope for healing in this broken world. Love causes to transformation of systems and lifestyles. However, our pro client are prolonged advocacy and insistence on justice and equity is finally paying off. We hope tonight you'll hear from hopefully from voices and from those who've been part of the decades long struggle for an institutional solution. Where it was agreed last year at COP 27 to finally establish a loss and damage fund. Now at COP 28 in coming up in Dubai, the agreement must be finalized. But there are still many risks and issues and we will be paying close attention and pressing our government negotiators to adopt it. It will be a litmus test of our integrity as a world community as to whether we accept our ethical and moral obligations and demonstrate the moral courage to do what is right. Later in this program, you'll hear how you can help with this push will come to that near the end. For now though, let's move into our time together as we learn about being repairers of the breach. We will hear from speakers who will have approximately five minutes. Well, we will hear from one speaker apparently who will have a few minutes to present their thoughts. And then we'll have some time for question and answer, which you can put in the chat and discussions in breakout groups. Then we'll come back for a fourth speaker and ideas and resources about how to move forward. Hopefully we'll all come away better informed and motivated to take action. Responding in faith. The first speaker will be Simon Chambers of Act Alliance who I've known for many years. We've acted together in many a cop and many a demonstration. Our second speaker Francis Namumu from the Pacific Conference of Churches, who again has been part of our climate change work for decades is unable because of Cyclone Mao, which is hitting the area right now. And Francis was to be followed by Tia Kennedy, a young indigenous activist who was also a cop 27 delegate. No relation to this Kennedy as far as we know. But again, she is having a power outage where she is in Walpole Island. So the chat function will be open for questions and we'll get to as many as time permits. Then we'll, after our breakout groups, which you'll hear more about as we go forward, we will hear from Mike Morris, who's the Green Party Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre, Ontario. And then we'll have some final words and conclusion in prayer. So at this time, I'd like to introduce my colleague Simon Chambers from Act Alliance. Let me find his bio so I can tell you. Simon's the Director of Communications with the Act Alliance. He's based in Toronto, Canada. And Simon's in work involves engaging in climate justice through both a humanitarian and an advocacy lens. And he's attended COPS as part of the Act Alliance delegation since 2017. So they would normally say the floor is yours, but there's no floor here. So I'm passing over the mic Simon over to you. Thank you very much, Joy. It's a pleasure to be here and welcome all of you to this webinar today. It's great to see so many people engaged on this issue and wanting to learn more and see how we as Christians in Canada can continue to be effective in our advocacy and our pushing of our own government. And through the government of Canada and the international agreements that happen at the UNFCCCC conference of the parties. Let me give a quick introduction to myself and my own history with climate change. As I said in my bio, I come at this from both a humanitarian and an advocacy perspective. And I was doing the humanitarian work first so I'll start from that perspective. Many of you probably remember 2013 when Super Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines and over 10,000 people were killed in that storm. And at the time we were told that that was the strongest storm on record to make landfall in the Philippines 10 years ago. I believe it's now the fifth most powerful storm to make landfall in the Philippines 10 years later. But we've heard almost nothing about the storms since then because they've become commonplace. When I visited the Philippines after Typhoon Haiyan, I met many people who talked about the fact that the Philippine government had put in place a new law which required that nobody was allowed to live within 50 meters of the ocean. This was in order to protect people from storm surge in future major storms, which on the face of it looks like a very good response to a storm that killed so many thousands of people in the space of one day. But what this meant was that poor fisherfolk who had no choice but to live right on the shores of the ocean were forcibly moved inland into the hills. In places where they couldn't practice their livelihoods, where they had lost their homes, they had lost their boats. When boats were provided for them by NGOs like members of the Act Alliance. The fishermen had to go and sleep down by the water away from their families so the boats weren't stolen. And so they were building huts right on the shore in the 50 meter zone where they weren't allowed to live facing potential harassment from the police or the government because they'd moved back to within 50 meters of the shore. Because the only way they could keep their livelihoods was to stay near their boats. This is one example of loss and damage. It wasn't something that I knew what it was called in 2013, but this was the reality facing these poor fisherfolk in the Philippines. And if we fast forward five years to 2018 or 2019, 2019 it was March of 2019 so five and a half years later. When Cyclone Edai hit Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. I visited people in Mozambique who were living on a floodplain. When I visited this plane you couldn't really see the hills to either side it was so wide. But the storm brought so much water inland that it was four or five meters deep across the entirety of this floodplain. I met a mother who climbed a tree with her baby on her back and waited three days in the top of the tree for the water to recede enough for her to come down to the land. Now they were able to reclaim their farm. But who knows how many more storms like this they'll be able to survive on this land on this floodplain before they're forced to give it up and move somewhere else. When I went into Zimbabwe, that storm as it came inland from Mozambique into Zimbabwe, eventually hit the mountains. And when the storm hit the mountains it caused numerous landslides, which devastated villages, ripping them off the sides of the mountain destroying homes, lives and livelihoods, and all those people lost everything that they had. Another example directly of the loss and damage brought about by this storm, even though it was hundreds of kilometers from shore. So these are some very concrete examples in the humanitarian realm of how churches have been involved in responding to these disasters that have caused losses and damages by trying to meet the needs of the people in these communities, helping them to rebuild homes to rebuild livelihoods to find ways of responding to their needs to take their knowledge, their wisdom, and their understanding of their place and help to provide them with the resources that they need to enact the solutions to those problems, but also to advocate with their governments to advocate more broadly within the international sphere for their needs in these kinds of situations. Because as climate change continues to devastate our world, these stories become more and more commonplace to the point where we don't even hear them anymore. So I have the privilege of serving Act Alliance and as Guy mentioned off the beginning, and thank you for the introduction to all of us, Guy, as well as to each of the organizations involved here. Act Alliance is an organization comprised of close to 150 churches and church based agencies, working in over 125 countries around the world. Within Canada, the Canadian Lutheran World Relief Presbyterian World Service and Development, the Primates World Relief and Development Fund, the United Church of Canada, the World Association for Christian Communication, and World Renew are members of Act Alliance who are all based here in Canada. So we bring together a range of Christian denominations and confessions in our humanitarian development and advocacy work. And one of the key thematic areas in our strategy is climate justice. As Joy mentioned earlier, we've been involved in this for many years now, and the act now for climate justice campaign is now in its 10th year within Act Alliance and part of the work that we do within that campaign is advocating at COP each year. So we were present in Paris in 2015 when the Paris Agreement was signed. And the Paris Agreement called for three major ways of responding to climate change. And Joy mentioned these in her presentation earlier. The first is mitigation, where we do everything that we can to limit global temperature rise and therefore the impacts of climate change around the world. The second is adaptation where we help communities and nations to adapt to change to meet the realities that climate change is bringing into their contexts. And as Joy said, there are times when the stresses of climate change are so much that it's not possible to adapt. And that's where loss and damage comes in, where people are losing their homes, their cultures, their livelihoods, and these can be both economic but also non economic losses and damages. So these three pillars are part of the Paris Agreement. And in the years that followed that there was an awful lot of attention and a lot of funding pledged to mitigation. There was substantially less attention paid and funding set aside for adaptation. Those two were supposed to have a 5050 split and the attention in the funding, and it was more like an 8020 split. And the funding that was promised by the rich nations has never materialized at the levels that were promised. And so we continue to fight for that. But loss and damage didn't even make it onto the table for many years. There was no funding set aside for loss and damage until last year when it cop. Finally, the loss and damage facility was approved as part of the decisions of COP 27, which was a tremendous win for everybody fighting for climate justice in the world. But as Joyce said, it's only the beginning, because while we've now agreed to a fund, there's nothing about how it will be funded, how much money will go in there, what those funds will look like, who will be able to benefit for them. So we'll be talking more about that as we move forward. But the role of churches has been quite instrumental in the work that's happened around loss and damage. And it's something that we've been fighting for along with all of our allies in civil society working for climate justice. We work as act alliance within the ecumenical movement so we work with the World Council of Churches the Lutheran World Federation with Canadian organizations like Kairos and the Canadian food grains bank who were here, hosting this webinar with. With broader faith based networks like the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the UNFCCC which brings together people from all kinds of faiths around the world who are champions for climate justice. We also work with the Illinois Dialogues to talk about the needs around climate change for people of faith around the world and where we see the creator God the spirit moving us and calling us to be fighting in the cop space each year. We also work with secular organizations like the Climate Action Network. And together we raise our voices and we push for things like loss and damage. And we know that this advocacy is effective, because we see the language that we have developed being picked up in country statements. We see movement in country positions over the years, even within the few years that I've been attending cop and enjoy talks about decades of experience I don't have quite that many yet. I've been attending cop for several years now. And in 2019 I met with the Canadian Minister for the environment. And when I talked to him about our climate advocacy as Act Alliance I mentioned loss and damage to him, and he literally took a step backwards away from me when I mentioned loss and damage. So uncomfortable with the idea of loss and damage because of that need for taking responsibility for accepting liability as Joy mentioned earlier, that they wanted nothing to do with that. And that was in 2019. And that the position of Canada changed drastically between 2019 and 2022. When Joy and I helped put together a Canadian ecumenical meeting with Catherine Stewart, the climate change ambassador for Canada. And we talked with her about loss and damage and what churches and people of faith around the world are calling for the realities facing communities where our churches are on the ground every day. And the need for Canada to step in and play their role. And Canada was one of the countries that was instrumental in making sure that the loss and damage facility was in the final decision at cop this year. There was an awful lot of effort put forward by the Canadian negotiators and minister to make sure that happened. And we can see the work that we've done with some of the, what are called the least developed countries the LDC, and other country groups, and supporting them in their advocacy in our own calls through our networks. And in our work directly with Canada and with other developed countries, and helping to shift the needle to change attitudes, and to bring about the beginnings of the work on loss and damage. And we do that through a variety of methods when we're at cop. Some of that is through meeting with negotiators and with ministers and politicians, like the meetings I described earlier. Some of that is through work with media, and we do a variety of actions to draw media attention with people in costumes and banners and chanting. And so we're part in climate marches, and joy and I are keeping track I think we're up to about a half a dozen countries where joy and I have marched together. As joy puts back on the the loss and damage face mask from last year and Charmel check from one of the actions that we took together. Advocacy takes place in the form of side events and other education opportunities that are held for negotiators and others who are attending the cop, and also throughout the year in other UNF triple C spaces and in webinars like this. So we continue to work with people at the grassroots level and communities at national levels regional levels and at global levels to push for justice for those who have done the least to cause climate change, but who are facing the worst of the effects of climate change and loss and damage is at the heart of that work as we move forward. So this year we're going to be continuing to push at cop for funding for loss and damage to make sure that that funding is what's called new and additional meaning it is outside the already announced funding from countries to make sure that the funding comes in the form of grants and not loans which only further and debt developing nations, and to make sure that a variety of instruments are used so that funding is available for the people in the communities who are most impacted by loss and damage and that money doesn't stop at major corporations or governments, and that it involves things more than just insurance schemes but has a wide variety of ways for people to actually access the funding. And some of the work that we'll be doing, and some of the work that we hope you'll continue to support us in through your own advocacy towards your government in your communities. And as we work together as people of faith around the world towards cop. Thank you back to you joy. Thank you, Simon. You've, you've really painted the picture well and so just to, we have a couple of minutes before, as we get into the possibility of questions and answers and if people would want to put some questions in the chat. We'll, we'll get to that. I am, I'm sorry that that Tia, who's down in Walpole Island, isn't able to connect because of a power outage. What, what was so, maybe I'll just read you a little bit about, about what Tia has been up to because this is a very important part of our, of our community and our work. I'll read you a little bit about Francis too, but Tia is an indigenous rights activist and youth leader who carries Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe teachings from United Nation of the Thames and Walpole Island First Nation. She was a delegate of the joint Kairos and for the love of creation delegation to cop 27 in Egypt last year. She was a 2021 girl rising fellow where she created a short film highlighting her family's devastating connection to the water crisis in First Nations communities. She's also spoken at the global women's forum in Paris, and the right here right now, global climate summit. So one of the, one of the really encouraging signs is the rising up of youth voices in this press. I mean, I'm a grandmother. So, you know, I'm not going to be here much longer. Well, we don't know how long we have but, you know, I look back and I think now is the time for my generation to be supportive and to be welcoming and finding ways to give space for these most important youth voices, especially indigenous youth voices who get it, who understand in their, in the depth of their experience and their, their tradition and their culture, who understand the necessity of caring for creation of caring for the land of caring for the water, and, and not letting these kind of terrible climate catastrophes wipe out and set us back I mean we've certainly we've seen tons of that in Canada this year, but globally that the solidarity that comes from that deep understanding of what they're experiencing as and part as part of being global communities is critical to change the dial to get the, the system change that we're, we're so needing because the, the voices are not being silenced. They're now coming out loud and clear and in partnership with youth around the world to say, you know, if you're not going to solve this, move over. Let us take a, you know, take our proper role in terms of identifying what's really going on from what we see. And, and let's get at those solutions that we know are there that we know are possible. The, the energy and the wisdom, I would say, of young leaders and young indigenous leaders particularly is, is something that is now. How shall I say that that's now influencing dramatically and deeply our advocacy and analysis as global climate movements. I do wish that we can follow up with Tia because she has so much to offer. I also would like to, to name my dear friend, Francis, who really wishes she could be here. Francis Namumu from, she's the ecumenical coordinator for the ecological stewardship and climate justice program of the Pacific Conference of Churches. She's an italki indigenous Fiji woman, a Methodist and an activist. Her current work focuses on the role and accompaniment churches provide toward communities faced with the dilemma of climate induced mobility. She's been working in the area of climate justice for more than a decade. The past six years her role with the Pacific Conference of Churches has had a special focus on the complex issues of adaptation, particularly on the relocation or displacement of whole communities, indeed of whole nations. We've received recent material from the, well, it will be the government of Vanuatu, for example, which is a delicate string of 83 remote islands to Narcapelago, making up the country of Vanuatu. But what's happening there is that storms and sea level rise are damaging cultural sites, fracturing local customs, language and communities, and causing mass displacement. So as people are moving, you know, to higher ground that there isn't much higher ground to happen to be to be had. And so what's happening is countries are now having to make arrangements deals agreements with countries like Australia to move whole populations. And what does that do to your sovereignty to your identity as a nation, your identity as a people with a cultural heritage. Where does that go as it swallowed up into an Australian landscape, or a New Zealand landscape, and that's the reality of what's happening in in low lying island countries. Also in the Caribbean. There's an organization called SIDS, the Small Island Developing States, and they're the ones that are in the forefront of advocating for human rights of their of their nations, but also of loss and damage, because the damages as they say are not just material damages. They're deeper than that they're the damage to the identity of a people. For example, the, the Pacific Conference of Churches is about to start its meeting. It's assembly tomorrow. And they're meeting in Numea. I don't even know where that is it's in Kanake. And I admit, I don't know my Pacific as well as I should. There you have the leaders of all of the Pacific Conference of Churches that are scattered throughout the entire Pacific region, trying to come together in an assembly. And they're now being being forced by tropical cyclone, Maui, from many of them not being able to get there. So how did they move forward. Where, where is their help for that? And, you know, who, who supports them as they try to, we would say weather the storm, but it's the, it's not just the storm. It's the string of storms is the unrelenting sea level rise that they're now facing. So these are part of the calculations around loss and damage. And, you know, there's no insurance scheme that can that can fix that. How do we fix anything like that? Well, we have to have genuine mutuality and shared shared resources to be able to bring to to bear where it's most needed. Because way beyond humanitarian disaster relief. It, you know, we've got to understand this is not about charity. This is about our fair share. This is about our responsibility as wealthy countries in Canada in particular. Now, I see a question in the chat from Cheryl about what do we feel are the biggest challenges in the next stages for loss and damage at COP 28. Simon, do you want to take a crack at that and I can follow up. Yeah, I think actually that Paul's question after this about how we, we dialogue with people who are wanting to focus on needs within the country. This is actually Paul's question here is one of the things that is a problem when it comes to loss and damage is that there is such a rise in the world of sort of neoliberal internal focus in governments and in politicians and in attitudes that are difficult to overcome. And as people are running into situations in their own context, they tend to focus on what's closest to them, rather than things that are happening a long way away. So it's going to be a real challenge to keep the world coming together. Because we know that climate change is something that impacts the entirety of the earth, as the signs always say when we're at climate marches there is no planet B. This is something that impacts the entire world that we live on. And so we all need to come at it together as humanity. And that's why having an interfaith approach to this is so important, because 85% of the world's population ascribes to a faith of some kind or another. And so when people of faith come together we represent the vast majority of the world's population. So when we can bring that lens and that voice to the for we can be more effective. But I think one of our big challenges will be that that focus inward that many nations have particularly developed richer nations. Part of it also is what Joy said earlier about rich nations not wanting to be held libel. Because if they accept responsibility then much more can be asked of them. And as Paul's question asks a lot of these countries don't want to put more money on the table when it comes to supporting loss and damage funds for other places around the world if it means accepting responsibility. So I think those will be some of the digger challenges. And I think that it will it will come out in the way the negotiations happen at COP, because COP is managed by a consensus model. And I always grew up thinking consensus was a good way of making decisions because everybody has to come to agreement on something. But what happens in the space of the COP every year is that the final decisions get watered down, because a couple of countries will block certain pieces of the text that is wanting to move forward. And so language will have to be watered down in order to get all countries on board. So the first week of a COP is always about raising ambition, getting as much language as much as the advocacy things as we can into the text. And then watching when the ministers come in the second week as things get dropped. And so we need to desperately try to make sure that loss and damage holds on to as many of the gains as possible. That will come in the first week of negotiations as that second week happens and they work towards a consensus, which involves meeting getting the agreement from all the nations all 192 nations who are signatories to the Paris agreement. And I think one of the important things though is that there are big players who have to be convinced and one of those is the United States. And our counterparts in churches in the United States and ecumenical groups in the United States are working very hard. And I've heard just today that one of the one of the blocks that had been there around moving forward on on an agreement on loss and damage has now been overcome. And I know some of that is because of the pressure being put on the US administration from our counterparts, as we try to do the same thing in Canada. It's really important that we understand that not everything happens in the negotiation at the cops. It happens before the cops, where positions are developed and framing of arguments are developed within government, but that's in in democratic governments anyway, in conversation with the people. So we do have a role and we'll come back to that later in this, this time together. But what we're going to do right now is spend a little bit of time, you've been hearing a lot from us speaking, but we're going to spend a bit of time in breakout rooms. And so that a number of you can have a have a chat together for a few minutes. And I think Beth is going to put us into those rooms for the next oh close to 15 minutes, maybe just under 15 minutes. Have I got that right. Oh no Carl is going to introduce it sorry Carl. I lost my note there. It's okay. Yeah, thanks for that joy and Simon that was really good. And so for the breakout rooms. Yes, Beth will put us in the breakout rooms that Fiona has posted the questions in the chat, but I'll quickly just kind of give you a sense there's three kind of clusters of questions. The first is really about your own experience of loss and damage, and how it might help you understand how you could advocate for loss and damage, or even the emotions that come up when you think about loss and damage from fires or floods or or smoke or or other severe storms or whatever. The second is why do you think churches should play a role in advocacy around loss and damage you've obviously heard a lot about that but so just discuss if this is an important thing for churches to be doing. And then the third, what, what kind of points that out from you from from what has been set up at this point. So these will be in posted so you can see them in the breakout rooms as well but I should also add. If you need French, if you are bilingual or you want French interpretation, please, you stay in the main room because the interpretation will continue there, but they, they won't be able. It won't happen in the in the other breakout rooms. So, go ahead Beth and put us in breakout rooms. All right, welcome back everybody I hope you had good conversations and got to meet some of your neighbors in our small group we literally had people who attend church next door to each other. In the same same area so that was lovely to have as well as people from other countries so great to have a wide range of folks but also folks who are next door but didn't know each other before. So that was one of the benefits of having this kind of an event. Now I'd like to encourage you please to take any highlights any insights that you had and add them into the chat here we don't have time to hear back from all the breakout groups unfortunately, but we do want to give an opportunity for you to share as you were talking about, as we go through the last 20 minutes of our time here together this evening. So please do right in the chat your insights your thoughts your further questions around the issue of loss and damage from your conversation. And as you're typing, I am going to take the opportunity to introduce a friend of mine. It is wonderful to be able to welcome Mike Morris to our call this evening. Mike is the first elected green member of parliament in Ontario, representing Kitchener Center. Mike is the founder of sustainable Waterloo region, the co creator of climate action WR and piloted Canada's first green economy hub, which later led to green economy Canada and eight green economy hubs across the country. Mike is being elected he's continued to address the climate crisis through his private members motion 92, which would place a windfall tax on the fossil fuel industry and direct resulting funds to proven climate solutions as a member of Canada's delegation to COP 26 in Glasgow and COP 27 in Egypt, which is where I had the pleasure of meeting Mike. I'm proud to introduce Mike as a friend of mine who is an excellent activist who also happens to be a politician. So welcome Mike it's lovely to see you and the floor is yours. Thanks so much, Simon that's the most lovely introduction. Yeah really appreciate being with you all tonight and most of all I really appreciate the way that faith communities through Act Alliance and Kairos and others are turning your faith into action. And particularly your advocacy on the climate crisis right now. It's really encouraging to me that the last two years I've been at the climate negotiations to have a chance to chat with Simon and many other faith leaders in a space where your advocacy is so so badly needed. And you've been talking a lot about loss and damage tonight and I'd like to be brief and not sure if we have time for questions if you're open to that I see a few friends here from Kitchener to nice to see a mix of people from across the country. I guess, if you're coming out of your conversations talking about loss and that and damages. I guess I can share with you one way that I've been trying to make the case in case that might help inspire some of your conversations on it also. And those who say that the climate negotiations are a waste of time I would point to the fact that we do have a loss and damage allocation now not not funded but there's a funding mechanism created so you can claim that goes too slow that's certainly true. But there can still be value to these negotiations. Unfortunate that an oil and gas company CEO is going to be the president this year that's going to make things more difficult certainly. And I see these negotiations there is there is some value to them even in their brokenness. But I guess one offering on loss and damages that I've been reflecting on is is how we can help press the federal government to see this, not as, you know, a nice to have, but actually part of our risk our global responsibility. I'm sure some of you have seen the numbers from the climate action network that for Canada to do its fair share on climate, we actually have to see a 140% reduction in our emissions, which of course is impossible. The only way to hit our fair share reduction target is by contributing to funds like that for losses and damages for the global south. So in a way then as the largest emitter per capita this is a crisis that is our responsibility to help address because we are among the countries who have disproportionately contributed to the crisis that we are in. And so it's kind of a gift in a way that there's an opportunity for us to contribute to a loss and damage fund to give us any possibility of hitting our 140% target, particularly at the time when we've yet to to hit our international aid target as well and we continue to miss it we were nowhere near that 0.7% either. And so, when I have conversations with the minister about it and I know he has actually been a great champion within a political party that is has been limiting what we can do. So that's the framing I've been trying to share with him to have us fulfill our responsibility on the, on the international stage, and negotiations like COP 28. So I'll pause there. Take from that what you'd like leave the rest happy to take questions though to or folks have things they want to share back with me or hear from me on. I want to hear more about motion 92 I'm all keen to talk about a windfall profit tax and oil and gas. Turns out we could generate 4.2 billion a year for climate solutions if they just did what they, if the federal government did for oil and gas what they've already done for banks and life insurance companies. So happy to answer anything you all might have whether it's on losses and damages or otherwise anything that strengthens your advocacy. I'm pretty keen on Simon thanks again to you and the act alliance and and all you folks for having me a part of your conversation. Great. Thank you very much. I'm going to pass it over now to Beth. So please go ahead Beth. Yes, and I just actually see he has his hand up and so I'm, if you have a question, do you want to just ask it. And if other folks have any questions in the chat, just may place them in the chat. We might not be able to get to all of them. But we can certainly get the answers in communication with Mike, but if you had a question. Yeah, thank you. Mike, first of all, thank you for being with us tonight for making time I know you have a busy agenda so thank you very much. I'm curious as a as a politician in Ottawa but also going to cop and so on. So how do you see the church's presence and advocacy and how are the churches perceived in in Ottawa and at cop like are they a voice that make a difference. First of all, I see the logo behind you there key I grew up in the Presbyterian church myself and so nice to see the Presbyterian church represented tonight. I think the challenge is that we have oil and gas executives that are getting hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meetings, and I don't think you can underestimate the influence that those hundreds of meetings lead to when you then see the billions of $22 billion in subsidies to the very industry that's most responsible for the crisis we're in. And so I think it's just it's a tall hill to climb. And when it comes to civil society's leadership, as an example, it's Simon and other faith leaders that are at every single negotiation, alongside other civil society folks. And so, yeah, I guess my favorite him is, you'll know we're Christians by our love. And to me when I see people of faith taking that love for creation and that love for neighbors and others, and putting that to the advocacy we need in the closing window of opportunity we have, it's a huge boost. And, and yeah, I think it's, I see it in Ottawa every day, I see it when I've been at the climate negotiations. And also it's just an unfair playing field. So it's kind of hard to how do you compare with like pathways alliance and the money that they have right in the access that they have and the stranglehold that they have on our on our political decision making in this country is just gross. And, and, and folks that are faith leaders are helping to counter that and we need more of it. So should we be knocking on the doors more often to try to get more meetings is that what you're hearing. Well yeah just like I said it's it's an unfair playing field but certainly galvanizing your faith communities to have them reach out to their MP. As one example their MP could joint second motion 92 tomorrow. We have at least one liberal MP Mark Garrison who's already publicly supported. We have the NDP in greens and block who are obviously all supporting also. But if, if you have constituents in writings that are particularly liberal writings. We need to be hearing from folks and while winner take all first pass the post distorts are political representation and Canadians want to see more climate action and part of the reason why they don't just because of the way we elect people. Despite that, I think it's really powerful when someone sends an email to their MP that's personally written saying I want you to do this specific thing I want you to endorse and joint second motion 92. I'm meeting with you to talk about it, or I want to see you press the federal government fund losses and damages as part of our climate action, part of our global responsibility, those kinds of specific calls to action I just, the oil and gas companies can't compete with that because they're not constituents. And I think when we have constituents I've seen MPs change their positions and endorse proposals after having those kinds of conversations so you know you're all part of faith communities across the country. If your members were to reach out to their MPs, we would see more climate action. So I guess it's a two way street, certainly take time to be an auto but if you can also take time to be in your communities galvanizing folks in your congregations to do to do that kind of advocacy it would be a huge service. Thank you so much, Mike, one for your climate leadership and for being with us tonight. If you have. There was one question just posed to me in the chat about motion 92 but I think we do have to get to a bit more programming. If there's a link for it though, could you place it in the chat and we would love to send that info out to all the participants. Please keep on with your agenda I'll be hanging out and adding a few links in the chat for those who are curious to learn more. Thanks again for having me a part of this. And yeah, Mike is here so feel free to chat with him as well in the chat and you can send him a direct message if you want. We're just grateful to have you with us to be part of this conversation on loss and damage. And my name is Beth Lormer for folks who don't know me already this evening or in this space and I'm the ecological justice program coordinator at Kairos Canada. And we have reached that point in our program where I will be sharing some resources for learning and action on loss and damage and climate justice to guide your next steps as we leave our time together this evening. And I have our colleague from Act Alliance Fiona will be placing many of those links in the chat. If you'd like to save the chat, please do but we will send out a follow up email with all the participants that will include all of these resources and links. So, don't feel like you have to scramble and copy and paste things we will send these to you. So if you are interested in digging deeper into the subject of loss and damage there are some resources that we will put in the chat, including a new report from Kairos Canada that was published today. The report addressing ecological debt, equity and justice for climate related loss and damage was authored by former colleague Randy Halooza delay with significant input from two of Kairos's global partners. Yvonne Yanis from Action Ecologica and Noble Wadza from Oil Watch Africa. The report centers on the analysis of these global partners. So really important to bring those voices from the global south forward into this work. And includes a lot of background information on the global work for loss and damage funds and recommendations for the Canadian government and international community, some of which. Simon mentioned some of those recommendations on how equity and justice can be can be centered in the development of a fund. So please do check that out and we will be adding to other reports briefing notes into the chat for you to explore the recommendations for the Canadian government and international community that are part of that report. Are meant to to kind of influence and inform the establishment and the operation of the global loss and damage fund. We encourage you to communicate these recommendations with the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of International Development ahead of COP 28. So please, you know, take a look in that report and either send the report straight on to their offices. Or we have created a sample letter to help you craft a message with some of those recommendations included in there. If anyone would like to have a copy of that letter in French, please email me directly and I will make sure that a translated version gets to you. Fiona will be putting my email in the chat as well. We invite you to keep following the organizations that we're hosting this event tonight. So please follow Act Alliance, the Canadian food grains bank. Kyra's Canada and for the love of creation and especially in the coming weeks and month as many of us are either planning to be in attendance at COP 28 or engaging with the global acumenical network and our networks in Canada on what is happening at COP 28 in Dubai. So our links to our organizations are there. So please do go to those sites and make sure you're following us on social media. That is your thing. I'll just note that ahead of COP 28 this week Kyra's Canada is hosting Climate Action Week. That will run until this weekend. This week's theme, Decolonizing Climate Action, Centering the Voices from the Global South, recognizes that the voices of those most impacted by climate change are often ignored, or they face barriers to participate in climate decision making. So we are amplifying and showcasing the work of global partners this week in our content. So please follow our blog and social media for that daily content. And for the love of creation has a road to COP webinar series, which began tonight by supporting this event, but includes more events in the coming weeks. There's also for the love of creation is also hosting an animator circle, which is a group of volunteers who will help to engage and connect with people across Canada on what is happening during COP 28. The animators and others will be coordinating a series of candles for COP vigils the weekend of December 8 to 10. For more information on all of this programming, please visit the link in the chat and join us in all of these activities in the next month. And I think that is all for me on all of those resources. Thank you Fiona for your chat support on sharing all of that great information. And I'm now going to pass things back to Joy. Who will close us our time together. We can't hear you Joy. No. Oh, there you are. You're good. Am I good. Yeah. Okay. Oh, there's a little button on this thing. I must have hit. Sorry. First of all, I just wanted to say how, how encouraged I am from this time together to hear more people wanting to really understand and take action on this essential, essential topic of loss and damage. And so I want to really thank all of you who participated particularly thanks to the organizers who came together to, to put this together. I think we should send messages to our two friends, Francis and Tia, who, who are experiencing the difficulties that are related to climate change for heaven's sake. And so thanks for their, their, their continuing presence among us, even though most of you don't know them, but they are, they are really important and we don't know most of the people who are engaged in this, in this struggle. They are part of us, whether we know their names or whether we know their, their situations, but we are all one human community. I want to give thanks especially to, to Tony for his opening prayer for to Simon for his really critical information and perspective. And to Mike for, for bringing that, you know, that hands on in the trenches. Here I am. Join me perspective. We don't make progress unless we all see each other in the, in the roles that that we all play. We each have a have a piece of this very critical. I won't say puzzle, because it's not a puzzle. It's, it's a movement and each of us is a, is a piece of that movement. So here we are finding ways to act together. And we would want to ask all of you to keep us in your prayers. Those of us who are going to Dubai. It's not for the faint of heart and we need to know that you're there with us. It's, it's a time for us to be your, your voice, but also to be listening to be listeners to the voices of those who are most impacted by the, the climate emergencies, climate catastrophes. So I would like to finish with a, with a prayer that, oh, and I don't know if I forgot to thank anybody. Oh yeah, especially our interpreters. Thank you so much. We really appreciate we understand that language is something that we all struggle with and it's so critical to have you with us. So thank you. The Cairo's worship resource for this year has a very fine benediction, which I'd like to close with. Having been touched by words of hope and truth may truth and hope now take root within us. Having been touched by words of justice and peace may peace and justice now bring forth fruit in our hearts. Having been touched by words of healing and love may love and healing now lead the way. Leading us into a world still hungering for wholeness. On this day we claim our part in that great project of God's reconciling work being done in all manner of things. And now the blessing of the Holy One rest upon us and guide us onward sustaining and empowering us as we strive for a world flooded with God's grace. Good evening all.