Displaying items by tag: Global

Every year countries pledge to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to curb the impacts of climate change. But still temperatures keep rising. Last month scientists announced that the average rise in global temperatures would likely pass the 1.5C threshold in the next five years. With temperatures rising we will see more heatwaves, wildfires and floods. From 5 to 15 June countries’ leaders are meeting at the Bonn climate conference to discuss, among other things, local communities and indigenous peoples, pre-2020 ambition and implementation, science, and oceans. They will review their pledges as they look ahead to November’s COP28. Even a small increase in average temperatures makes a big difference as the whole distribution of daily temperatures shifts to warmer levels, making hotter days more likely and more extreme. See

Dr Jason Hubbard, the director of International Prayer Connect, invites us to Pentecost 2023 - a Global Day of Prayer for Jerusalem and the nations. On 27 and 28 May, a coalition of believers in Israel and elsewhere, along with mission and prayer organisations, is calling Christians everywhere to set aside an hour to pray for Jerusalem and the Jewish people. Different groups from Israel and the nations will lead a 26-hour broadcast, with different key partners leading prayer from their part of the world. This will see several high points, including a broadcast from the southern steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. You are invited to join over 110 million other believers around the world exalting Jesus, proclaiming His name over Jerusalem and the nations, praying for the peace of Jerusalem, and for the gospel to reach the ends of the earth. For info about joining the event, go to  See also

Next week Tearfund staff and campaigners from communities most affected by plastic pollution will be in Paris for the second round of negotiations on a UN global plastics treaty. The talks - known as INC-2 (Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee) - will run from 29 May to 2 June and mark a significant moment in a rubbish campaign. Tearfund is asking Christians to pray for the negotiations. Recent research showed that across the world 218 million people (equivalent to the populations of the UK, France and Germany combined) are at risk of flooding made worse by plastic pollution. At the talks, Tearfund will be calling for an ambitious and binding treaty that fully addresses plastic pollution and the impact it has on people living in poverty. It believes every person God created has value and should have the opportunity to live a full life, free of rubbish

500+ churches across Texas have left the United Methodist denomination, feeling it necessary for moving forward after it adopted an LGBTQ-friendly ideology, shown for example by the election of a second openly gay bishop in November 2022. A Houston pastor said, ‘I believe what scripture clearly teaches that human sexuality is a gift from God, reserved for a man and a woman in a monogamous marriage. That belief is not being upheld.’ Over 1,800 US churches have left since 2019 and joined the new theologically conservative Global Methodist denomination launched in 2022. Methodist churches in Bulgaria and Slovakia have also voted to do so. They have begun operations of an annual conference in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Philippines. Also the United Methodists permit other beliefs about Jesus, allowing pastors to proclaim that Jesus might not be the only way of salvation.

Violence against Christian women and girls continues to rise everywhere. Christian women are abducted and used as sex slaves. The 'honour' culture is used to shame and stigmatise victims of sexual or physical abuse, so victims are silent. Men attack with impunity because victims keep quiet for fear of dishonour to their family or community, so wrongdoing often goes punished. This, in turn, makes women and girls increasingly vulnerable to psychological violence. Rape victims are often viewed as sexually impure, making them vulnerable to rejection and limiting their future prospects. In many cultures, women do not hold the same value as men. This undergirds much of the persecution faced by our sisters. And in many cases, being a Christian means they are regarded as having even less worth. Open Doors’ vision is that every woman who is persecuted for her faith and gender is seen, valued, and empowered to reach her God-given potential.

The chairman of the Global Anglican Future Conference, GAFCON, used his presidential address at its meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, to repeat calls for Justin Welby to repent. Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America said, ‘Sadly, with broken hearts, we must say that unless the Archbishop of Canterbury repents, we can no longer recognise him as the “first among equals” and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.’ His address referred to the General Synod vote earlier this year to agree to bless same sex unions. Archbishop Beach described the Kigali meeting of over 1,300 people from 53 nations as potentially one of the most important church gatherings in our time. He emphasised the importance of believers addressing sin - personal, provincial or church sin - and called on the Anglican Church to prioritise 'repentance, revival, renewal and moving forward'. The Church cannot be reconciled to God without repentance.

Most Muslims fall into one of two camps - Sunni or Shia. The term Sunni means laws and comes from the word ‘sunnah,’ which means ‘way of life’. This refers to the way of life of the Prophet Mohammad. 90% of Muslims around the world are Sunni. A movement of the Gospel among Sunni Muslims could impact nearly the entire Muslim world. Today, God is doing just that. He is drawing unprecedented numbers of Sunni Muslims to Himself in every region of the world. More Muslims have turned to follow Jesus in the past fifteen years than in the previous 1,400 years combined. But there are still 1.8 billion Muslims living without a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Ramadan ends on April 21. During Ramadan, Muslims have been intentionally seeking God through prayer and fasting. Pray for an incredible number of Muslims to encounter their Saviour Jesus.

Sultan Al Jaber, the CEO of the UAE’s national oil company, Adnoc, has been controversially appointed president of the UN’s COP28 summit in December; campaigners say this makes a mockery of the summit. Adnoc, the world’s 11th biggest oil and gas producer, delivered over a billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE) in 2021. Time is running out to end the climate crisis, yet Sultan Al Jaber is overseeing expansion to produce extra oil and gas, equivalent to 7.5bn barrels of oil, the fifth largest increase in the world. 90% would have to remain in the ground to meet the net zero scenario of the International Energy Agency. The UAE has the third largest plans for oil and gas expansion in the world, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Antarctica’s melting ice sheet could retreat much faster than previously thought. Withdrawing glaciers in Antarctica currently retreat by up to 30 metres a day. But if they sped up, the extra melt water would have big implications for sea-level rises globally. Ice losses from Antarctica caused by climate change have already pushed up the surface of the world's oceans by nearly 1 cm since the 1990s. Researchers have been looking at a great swathe of seafloor which twenty thousand years ago was witness to a massive ice sheet in the process of withdrawal and break-up: the maximum retreat was 600+ metres a day. Their research is recorded in this week's edition of the journal Nature. Scientists look into the geological past to tell us what is possible. Satellite records only cover forty years or so. This geological record has actually happened in the real world, not in a computer model world.

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American Cardinal Raymond Burke want the Vatican to put Germany's Roman Catholic bishops on trial for abandoning church doctrine and approving Church blessings of same-sex unions and weddings between divorced Catholics. Cardinal Mueller wants all German bishops who voted to bless same-sex unions to be held to account, tried, sentenced and then removed from their office if they are not accepting the Catholic doctrine. Cardinal Burke has publicly clashed with Pope Francis before and is seen as the leader of the church's conservative wing. He wants sanctions against the German bishops under the Code of Canon Law. British Anglican Chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth, Gavin Ashenden, said it isn’t just German Catholic bishops who are revising church doctrine; there was an issue of lack of faith across Europe. Polish and Nordic archbishops are also challenging Germany’s path. See