As part of the 2024 World Plenary Meeting (WPM), QUNO Geneva Interim Deputy Director and Representative for the Human Impacts of Climate Change Lindsey Fielder Cook, contributed personal reflection and testimony by video recording on the theme of ‘care for creation’. Taking place in South Africa from 5-12 August 2024, the WPM was organized by the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) and hosted by the Southern Africa Yearly Meeting.

Reflecting personal experience, global witness, and a call to action for Friends worldwide, Lindsey’s ministry showed the importance of care for creation as a personal and communal priority, as well as a value held by QUNO as an organization. Her words made explicit that existential rates of global warming, chemical pollution, and species extinction are a peace and justice issue. Despite global compacts like the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk and Reduction that call for climate action, international contributions for loss and damage are overshadowed by the $2.4 trillion that went to military spending last year. Care for creation means a call to conscience and climate justice. We must recognize that it is unsustainable to continue with our entrenched systems of inequity and economic exploitation. Care for creation means recognizing the sacred in our neighbors – the spirit that exists in all of us and around us.
QUNO builds on a radical legacy by evolving with the continuing witness of Friends worldwide. QUNO’s work in New York and Geneva across various program areas from peace and disarmament to climate change and human rights reflects Quakers’ deep commitment to peace and justice and to the three streams woven together at the World Plenary: Ubuntu, care for creation, and healing from historical and continuing injustice. 

You can watch a playlist of the recordings from all three ‘streams’ that were discussed at the 2024 World Plenary here. Lindsey Fielder Cook’s session on care for creation can be watched here, via the Friends World Committee on Consultation YouTube channel. A text version of her address can be found in PDF form below. 

Image courtesy of FWCC.