The Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology

International

Hope for a Global Plastics Treaty and how Canada can help

The latest negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty have failed to reach agreement thanks to push back from oil producing states and petrochemical industry balking at the idea of limiting the production of plastic. The 2025 negotiations were to be the critical final phase of the progress of the Global Plastics Treaty. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address plastic pollution and reshape the future landscape of the plastics industry into a more circular economy.

For context, the United Nations Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution was set up to develop an international, legally-binding treaty targeting plastics pollution and to eliminate plastic waste by 2040. ORCIE has been closely following the Treaty Process and Sue Wilson, csj participated in the 2024 INC-4 in Ottawa. Before this month’s talks in Geneva, the INC had already met five times, most recently in Busan, South Korea in 2024, and had expected to finalize the treaty in 2025. Instead, frustrated by debate over whether to focus on plastic waste reduction or address the entire plastic lifecycle (from design to the phasing out of harmful chemicals) the negotiations ended with no agreement.

For excellent coverage read this excellent article from National Catholic Reporter: With no treaty to control plastics, concern over harm to people and planet grows.

There is good news! The majority of countries remain committed to securing binding targets to curb plastic pollution, and all countries will remain at the table. Canada played a key role, by championing the rights of Indigenous people and insisting any treaty must include real measures to curb plastic pollution. 

What now? It is our collective advocacy that has kept true hope alive for an effective treaty to end plastic pollution. With Environmental Defence you can send a letter to Canada’s Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin, encouraging her to continue to take ambitious action to end plastic pollution. In the meantime, Canada can get to work at home to strengthen its own policies and regulations to eliminate harmful plastic products and chemical additives while supporting alternatives to single-use plastics, including accessible reuse and refill systems. 

ORCIE Endorses Open Letter by Faith Organizations in Support of Preserving El Salvador’s Historic Ban on Metals Mining

The Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology (ORCIE) is pleased to share that we have officially endorsed the Open Letter by Faith Organizations in Support of Preserving El Salvador’s Historic Ban on Metals Mining. This collective statement urges governments to uphold the decision of the people of El Salvador and their church institutions to protect their land, water, and communities from the devastating impacts of metallic mining.

We, the undersigned, from a diversity of church structures(representing local, regional, and national expressions of churches and related agencies),express our steadfast support for the people of El Salvador and their religious institutions and leaders who are struggling to maintain their country’s historic ban on metal mining –in place from 2017 to 2024 — so all Salvadorans can enjoy their God-given right to clean water.  We stand in solidarity with civic and religious leaders who are being persecuted and imprisoned for working against injustices, including the devastation that metals mining would cause their communities…”

We encourage our members to join us in this important initiative by signing on behalf of your congregation. Adding your voice amplifies the call from people of faith who are advocating for ecological justice and the defense of communities most at risk.

📅 Deadline to sign: September 1, 2025

👉 Read and sign the open letter here

Together, our collective witness can amplify the moral voice of the people of El Salvador in their call for justice and the care for creation.

Canada’s Fair Share

ORCIE is working with organizations from across Canadian civil society to call upon the government of Canada to fulfill our fair share of the global effort to confront the climate crisis. As the 30th annual UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) approaches, Prime Minister Carney has a generational opportunity and responsibility to lead boldly on climate justice, economic transformation, and international solidarity.

The climate emergency was created and is accelerated by a deeply unjust global economic system that is unfairly distorted against Indigenous communities and the Global South.

Countries like Canada – one of the wealthiest in the world, one of the largest historic climate polluters and one of the primary crude oil and gas producers – must contribute its fair share towards global climate action. We must not only make a domestic just
energy transition off fossil fuels but must also use our wealth – generated from resource extraction at home and around the world – to support the Global South to do the same and adapt to the climate crisis.

The Fair Share Platform for Global Climate Equity

This is not charity, but an imperative – recognized under the 2015 Paris Agreement – that countries must fund global climate actions according to their responsibility for the climate crisis and their ability to pay.

Why this matters

We believe that the time has come to reckon with Canada’s role in the international community. Canada can show leadership in supporting energy transitions around the world. We can also help transform unfair systems that have become barriers to climate action.

Doing our fair share means building a new package of support to the international community from the Canadian government – rooted in justice and led by social movements.

  • Triple Canada’s climate finance to support the Global South with grants, not loans.
  • Cancel unjust Global South debt and free billions for climate solutions.
  • Make big polluters and the ultra-rich pay their fair share. 
  • End trade rules that undermine climate action. 

    Read the full platform for a detailed breakdown of how Canada can do its part in the global climate fight.

    Individuals are encouraged to sign the petition to send these demands to the Prime Minister and key cabinet ministers.

    Religious congregations are invited to sign on as an organization and can do so through this form.

    Linking Ecological Debt to Global Financial Exploitation

    For Jubilee 2025 ORCIE explores the concept of ecological debt and its deep connections to global financial exploitation in a special deep-dive position paper, Linking Ecological Debt to Global Financial Exploitation. This paper explores the deep-rooted connections between environmental destruction, colonial legacies, and the ongoing economic disparities between the Global North and South. Inspired by Pope Francis’s urgent appeal for debt forgiveness and systemic reform, the paper advocates for a reform of the current global economic system to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). We invite you to engage with this vital conversation and join us in the pursuit of a just and compassionate future.

    Find the executive summary here: Linking Ecological Debt to Global Financial Exploitation Summary

    Find the Spanish version of the Executive Summary Here: Vinculando la deuda ecológica a la explotación financiera mundial

    Ecological_Debt_ Position_Paper_FINALDownload

    We need a ‘multilateralism from below’

    … the current system is inadequate to address the multiple crises we are facing.

    This fall, ORCIE followed with attention the meetings and negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty, the Global Biodiversity Framework and the COP29 Climate Change Convention. Despite positive outcomes, what did not happen at these international meetings put the implementation of these important accords at risk. When meetings end without an agreement, future negotiations are put to question. It is the same with the global financial system, the business as usual approaches are not working.

    Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCC) met in Baku, Azerbaijan for their 29th Conference, this time to focus on climate finance and to determine the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) to meet the needs of developing countries, and set the foundations for climate justice and action for the next decade. When we talk about ‘climate finance’ we mean local, national or transnational financing —drawn from public, private and alternative sources of financing—that seeks to support mitigation and adaptation actions that will address climate change. Frustratingly, the climate needs of the Global South are in the trillions and the COP29 decision on NCQG only set a goal of $300 billion USD per year, by 2035.

    Disappointed with quantity ($) in commitments we expected to see improvements in quality, but this modest increase also missed the target of redirecting public finance into grants and non-debt creating instruments, and makes no distinction between mitigation, adaptation and the third pillar to climate finance – loss and damage. The scaling up of climate finance is about the Global North contributing its fair share and to have this shameful result after three years of COP negotiations shows how clearly the needs and priorities of developing countries are being dismissed. The finance conversations cannot end in Baku but must be moved forward with action on multiple levels and include reforming international finance architecture and addressing the debt crisis.

    Meanwhile, how do we articulate the growing need for these multilateral processes? We must get back to the focus on a just transition for workers, and skip the UN conference tourism, the fossil fuel lobbyists and the elected leaders flying in for a day instead of truly participating in a process. We must commit to a successful process because, while flawed, civil society and countries of the Global South are able to participate in the UNFCCC, compared to other international institutions or spaces (like the World Bank) that are playing a reinforcing role for the Global North.

    It is clear the current international financial system is inadequate to address the multiple crises we are facing: climate and ecological justice with growing poverty and inequalities worldwide. Yet, finance is central to development and climate action. COP29 should have been about new and additional public grants-based climate finance that is adequate, predictable, needs-based, rights-responsive and most of all provided by developed countries to fulfill their obligations under the Paris Agreement. Building political will and public pressure will be crucial to ensure the next negotiations don’t fall apart and multilateral spaces are strengthened so we can get back to work.

    Pope Francis challenges us to see climate action as a means to strengthen democracy and to renew, recreate and reconfigure multilateral processes. Let’s pray and work for an increase in a ‘multilateralism from below’ in 2025. It may be the only thing we have to save the UN conferences.

    “The demands that rise up from below throughout the world, where activists from very different countries help and support one another, can end up pressuring the sources of power. It is to be hoped that this will happen with respect to the climate crisis. For this reason, I reiterate that “unless citizens control political power – national, regional and municipal – it will not be possible to control damage to the environment.”

    Pope Francis, Laudate Deum, 38