The Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology

International

On the Road to COP30: ORCIE’s Journey to Belém, Brazil

The Office of Religious Congregations for Integral Ecology (ORCIE) is proud to announce that from November 10 to 17, 2025, a delegation from ORCIE — Geneviève Gallant, Executive Director, and Sasquia Antúnez Pineda, Advocacy & Communications Officer — will join thousands of world leaders, civil society organizations, and faith-based advocates at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30).

ORCIE’s participation in COP30 reaffirms our commitment to climate justice and to the Global South’s moral call for recognition of ecological debt. By engaging Catholic networks, Canadian policymakers, and global partners, we seek to bring these voices into Canada’s climate conversation and inspire action grounded in justice and care for creation.

Our work at COP30

During the conference, the ORCIE delegation will:

  • Work in close collaboration with Sister Eliana Aparecida dos Santos of the Congregation of St. Joseph in Brazil, who is graciously hosting us and participating alongside us in COP30 events.
  • Attend key UNFCCC side events and CAN-Rac working group meetings following negotiation streams on Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), adaptation, and climate finance.
  • Engage Canadian government delegates on issues of ecological debt, loss and damage, and fair financing for global climate action.
  • Gather stories and perspectives from faith and civil society partners in the Global South for our Global South Voices project.
  • Participate in the People’s Summit and Day of Action events, amplifying messages of solidarity, faith, and ecological justice.

Highlight: ORCIE Staff Will Join COP30 Panel on Global South Bishops’ Call for Climate Justice

We are proud to share that ORCIE staff member, Sasquia Antúnez Pineda, a Honduran-Canadian with lived experience across the Global South and North, will speak on the second panel of the side event “Responding to the Global South Catholic Bishops Conferences’ Call for Climate Justice” on Tuesday, November 11, from 4:45–6:15 p.m. (3:45–5:15 p.m. ET) in the Blue Zone.The event will explore the joint statement A Call for Climate Justice and the Common Home, from the Catholic Bishops Conferences of Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean released in June 12, 2025, which calls on the Global North to recognize its ecological debt, phase out fossil fuels, and resist false solutions to the climate crisis.

Drawing on her bi-national perspective and her work on ecological debt, Sasquia will reflect on how insights from Global South civil society can inform Canadian faith-based advocacy, connecting the Bishops’ moral appeal to ORCIE’s work for ecological justice and Canada’s responsibility to act in solidarity for our common home.

Why we’re going

“COP30 is an opportunity for ORCIE to stand in solidarity with the people of the Global South—those most affected by ecological breakdown yet least responsible for it. We will represent the voices of our Catholic religious congregation members and amplify their call for climate justice.”

Geneviève Gallant

ORCIE Executive Director
“By witnessing the negotiations firsthand, we can bring back grounded insights and lived experiences that will give weight and authenticity to ORCIE’s advocacy in Canada. The connections and stories we gather in Belém will inform our briefings, media work, and legislative engagement well into 2026.”

Sasquia Antúnez Pineda

Advocacy & Communications Officer

Carrying the momentum home

The insights and relationships built at COP30 will directly shape ORCIE’s spring legislative advocacy with the federal government, grounding our policy recommendations on Canada’s Nationally Determined Contributions, climate finance, and Loss and Damage commitments in lived experience and moral perspectives from the Global South.

Through post-COP reports, presentations and media, ORCIE will share lessons and reflections with our member congregations and supporters across Canada.

Stay updated on our COP30 journey—follow ORCIE on social media: www.facebook.com/orcie.org and www.instagram.com/orcie.bcrei/

Save the date! Join us on February 12, 2026, at 1 PM EST for ORCIE’s Post-COP30 Reflections Webinar — where we’ll share insights, stories, and next steps for legislative advocacy in Canada.

REGISTER HERE: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tTIvnj8MTgeGWP6VFKtv-A#/registration

The UN annual summit COP30 will be held in the Amazon, in the city of Belém. Photo: Rafa Neddermeyer/COP30 Amazônia/PR)

You’re Invited: ORCIE-BCRÉI Virtual Training — Canada for Global Climate Justice

Canada must do its fair share to confront the climate emergency. That’s why we are inviting you to take part in ORCIE-BCRÉI Learning and Lobbying Days 2025: Canada for Global Climate Justice, beginning with a virtual training session.

This online event will equip you with the tools to advocate for Canada’s fair share in tackling the climate crisis — a crisis fueled by debt burdens, deepening climate impacts, cuts to foreign aid, and an unjust global financial system.

📅 When: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
🕐 Time: 1:00 PM EST
🎤 Speakers: Seth Klein & Anjali Appadurai (Climate Emergency Unit)

This online training will prepare you to meet with MPs and share how Canada can lead boldly on climate justice, economic transformation, and international solidarity. Together, we can make Canada’s voice stronger in the fight for a just and sustainable future.

👉 Register now to join us: Meeting Registration – Zoom

For more information, contact:

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.