Pilgrims marching from Poland to Scotland for climate justice

By Vatican News staff reporter

The fifth ecumenical pilgrimage for climate justice got underway on Saturday, starting from Zielona Góra, Poland.

The pilgrimage will take the participants to Glasgow, Scotland, in time for the start of the annual United Nations Climate Conference (COP26), which will take place in November.

Some 30 pilgrims have joined the initiative organized by the Institute for Church and Society of the Protestant Church of Westphalia, with support from the Polish Bishops' Conference, the Evangelical Church of Poland, and the bishop of the Evangelical Church of Berlin and Brandenburg Christian Stäblein.

The group will travel a total of 1,450 kilometers with 77 stops along the way.

Urgent climate crisis

The news portal Cathobel of the Catholic Church in Belgium reported that the ecumenical pilgrimage aims to highlight that, despite the momentary reduction in polluting and environmentally harmful activities due to the pandemic, with the return to normalcy there is still excessive consumption of resources, a shocking and silent extinction of millions of plants and animals, and a serious climate crisis.

They hope underscore the urgency of the situation, get people in involved in doing what is possible to address the crisis, and assure those most affected receive solidarity.

Global efforts for change

The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31 October – 12 November 2021.

The COP26 summit will bring more than 190 world leaders together with hopes for action to be agreed upon to work towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In the lead up to the summit, representatives of national governments, civil society, companies and people on the frontline of climate change have been meeting in various parts of the world in order to bring momentum for climate action.