DAY TWO
COP30
November 11, 2025
My day started at 5am, because I knew that was when Sulman and Abilio would be arriving from Colombia. I have been managing on my own since I arrived on Sunday, two whole days. But it is so much. Three heads looking at several thousand activities are better than one. Plus my credit card seized up in Manaus, and I have survived by begging, borrowing and transferring money to Beth, from Kairos, who is here, who ran around town looking for a working ATM. So, now I have money AND friends.
They arrive at around 9, with delays, and waits and customs and taxi rides. Then there’s getting them settled, and breakfast and finally, we are out the door on our way to the Anglican Cathedral. We can walk there. I am pretty excited. It is less than two kilometres away. It is late morning. We bake, melt, the usual. When we get there — joy! Right away I bump into Ives, the Cathedral dean, also a poet and an artist. He is ushering folks in. The Cathedral is hosting the Tapiri, a vast inter-faith gathering that will unfold over the next four days — layered on top of the people’s summit that starts on Wednesday, the green zone of COP (non-credentialed) and the blue zone (credentialed) of the actual COP summit, and dozens, if not hundreds, of side events.
We are glad to make new friends — and I reintroduced myself to the Lakota-priest, the Rev. Shaneequa Brokenleg. The Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg is the Rev. Shaneequa’s uncle.
“Where did you study?” I ask
“Vancouver School of Theology,” she answers.
“Shut the front door!” My mother-school.
“At first. But then I had to go elsewhere so I could be ordained in the US Episcopal Church. But VST Summer School was the best. My people. My way.”
“Wow,” I say. Lucky me. The Rev. Dr. Martin Brokenleg had been my preaching professor, pastor care professor and the supervisor on my Master’s Thesis. (2009 — on the nature of Sacred Land and the (terrible) Goldcorp mine in Guatemala —see my previous post: Turning Away from Judas’ Silver.)
We chat some more. The Rev. Shaneequa is the Episcopal Church’s Staff Officer on Racial Reconciliation. She lives in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I can’t believe we’re together here.
We connect with other active Christians. We practice our Portuguese. Fr. Ives offers to photocopy the flyer with the QR code for The Poem. We head across the street for lunch. Then we gird our loins and head to COP.
Through a small miracle, we had acquired two blue zone badges for Sulman and I. I wasn’t sure I wanted one. Not being the kind to be official, and all that. But Abilio encouraged me and a Colombian Mennonite friend contacted Samuel from A Rocha in Surrey BC(!) and somehow with much fussing and correcting of my name through the official channels we are registered. Sulman, the co-secretary of the global Oscar Romero Network and I (co-president of the same) have our passes. Abilio no.
Abilio, other than being my younger brother, is also a Great Colombian Activist. Dangerous enough to be targeted, wily and lucky enough to have survived the waves of repression. We lost him from SICSAL (he was our previous secretary) for three years when he was snagged to work with the Colombian ministry of the interior (under Petro, of course.) This year he retired from the government, and came back to work with us. We had tried to get him a pass, here, and there, but it never came through. We chat as we head in, who needs a blue pass anyway? There’s SO much going on.
I had spoken with the Colombian desk inside (when they confirmed the reading of my poem) about securing a pass for him. They said they would talk with the Vice, but she was obviously loaded with activities. Sulman lines up, and Abilio goes up too, while I disappear inside to find someone from the Colombian pavilion to help. By the time we get back to registration, Sulman AND Abilio are walking in with passes. Saber what he did or said.
So we are in. We walk up and down, east, west, north and south. I am so happy to be with them. We are each other’s kind of Christian. Revolution till the cows come home. Overthrow violence, hatred, greed, war, capitalism, cruelty, horror, with our story (often cruelly twisted and muddied along the centuries) of absolute love, compassion, humility, action in favour of the most oppressed. I could just dance to be with them here!
After a while we are tired. We sit to recharge phones, refill water bottles. We have seen several dozen displays, spoken with several dozen people. These two hadn’t slept one minute on the plane over here, or since. I didn’t sleep much, because I was waiting for them, and writing to you. The energy of the streams of people is invigorating.
We are going through layers of schedules. We decide to divide. They both head back downtown to a church for a gathering of the Laudato Si movement. This is the global network that formed 10 years ago after Pope Francis’ encyclical of the same name. I want to hang with the Canadians. Our networks: Kairos (supported by the United Church of Canada, and ecumenical) and Development and Peace (Catholic oldies, the organization, and goodies). They are hosting a panel on the Bishops of the Global South and their critically important joint letter to COP30.
I am in the right place. This document is a watershed piece of work. Bishops holding nothing back. Three continents speaking with one powerful voice. Cardinal Pablo David of the Philippines starts us off. Super typhoon slams the archipelago. Hurricane devastates Jamaica. Warmer, stronger, longer, larger. The least responsible for climate change are suffering the most. Droughts, cyclones.
This is not just a political or economic crisis. This moral and civilizational. Those in the “global north” are invited to an eco-conversion. How are we going to relate, to each other, to God, to this noble earth? The climate crisis is based on broken relationships. How are we going to change these. Incremental change are not enough. As a church we have a voice, we are called to call for an end to the myth of limitless growth, of faith in extractive industries as a model for human living. We stand for an equitable energy transition rejecting false narratives and false stories of carbon offsets, “green” mining. The poor are not an afterthought.
Hermana Rosita Sidasmed from northern Argentine takes the mike. Her work is in the northern region of Argentina, El Chaco and the Guaraní Aquifer. The area has parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay (See Grandin’s America, América and the Chaco War). The Aquifero is the second largest body of fresh water in the world and is under attack from every angle. Sister Rosita works with indigenous folks, campesinos and neighbourhood committees in defence of the water. Denouncing false solutions. Standing with the people. Green economies (land) and Blue economies (water) still operate with an extractive logic. This has to end. Our gospel rejects the logic of these false solutions. This fight is existential. Without grasslands, without water, without the earth — there will be no life.
Sister Immaculate Tusingwire, of the Medical Mission Sisters (Uganda) speaks next. There is an oil pipeline — the largest in the world. It is 80% complete. They fought for years and now have lost. The rural communities will lose everything. Losing the battle, people have also lost hope. (My heart sinks and I shed a few tears). The Bishops’ letter gives hope, she says. We have to be wary (she adds her voice to all the others) of false solutions and dangerous distractions. We are working towards a true solution, a massive change needs to happen.
We wrap it up, more voices. Filipina activist Lidy Nacpil from the Asian Peoples’ Movement for Debt and Development, let’s the world hear: We will not be silenced!
Canadian Catholic bishop, Jon Hansen of Mackenzie-Fort Smith (Northwest Territories), offers a summary, adds his peoples’ voice. Forest fires. Smoke. Melting tundra.
We leave the freezing air-conditioned room and head into the warm night. I finally figure out how to hop on a COP bus and head downtown to meet Sulman and Abilio. There is a giant dinner underway, sponsored by Laudato Si, Brazil. We eat, laugh and share our days. Leaving, I bump into Joanina, from the Itinerate Group, based in Manaus, and active all over the Amazon. We cry for joy and embrace. We were together in 2019nin the Vatican, at the Synod on the Amazon, now six years ago, just before the pandemic. We celebrated with Pope Francis and planted an oak tree in the Vatican garden. I tell her — your group, Fernando, Francisco, and you, all the rest —dancing, praying, eating, laughing together in Rome — that’s when I first fell in love with the Amazon. You, I tell her, are probably the reason I am here. Love.