Last week, I had the honor of organizing Katrina 20: Faith, Climate & Justice – A Moral Witness Dialogue alongside Karenna Gore of the Center for Earth Ethics, at the historic Tate, Etienne, and Prevost (TEP) Center in New Orleans. This gathering marked the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and was part of the Global Ethical Stocktake, a process feeding into the UN climate negotiations at COP30 in Brazil later this year.

The TEP Center, founded by the Leona Tate Foundation for Change in the former McDonogh 19 Elementary School, is a sacred site of civil rights history. It was here that Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, and Tessie Prevost—three six-year-old Black girls—integrated the school in 1960, escorted by federal marshals through angry white mobs. Holding Katrina 20 in this space reminded us that the fight for climate justice is inseparable from the struggle for racial justice, and that the courage of past generations continues to guide us in the face of today’s crises.

We came together as faith leaders, frontline organizers, and community members to reflect on the legacy of Katrina and bear witness to the ongoing struggle for justice in the Gulf South. The truth we lifted up is one we know too well: these storms, floods, and pollution crises are not “natural disasters.” They are the result of political and corporate choices that sacrifice our communities for profit.

The dialogue was co-moderated by Karenna Gore and Jacqui Patterson of the Chisholm Legacy Project, and featured testimony from a powerful lineup of leaders: Dr. Angela Chalk, Founder & Executive Director, Healthy Community Services, Ms. Sharon Lavigne, Executive Director & Founder, RISE St. James, Bette Billiot, Community Organizer, LA Liberation & Sovereignty Collection; Co-Director, Bayou Youth Leadership Project, Scott Eustis, Community Science Director, Healthy Gulf, Anthony Giancatarino, Co-Director/Strategy Partner, Taproot Earth, Chenier “Klie” Kliebert, Founding Director, Imagine Water Works; Creole Indigenous Climate Leader, Gregory N. Swafford, Southeast Louisiana Organizer, Healthy Gulf; Founding Director, Culture of Cleanliness, Toi Carter, Executive Director, Louisiana Just Recovery Network; Katrina Survivor, and Ms. Darrilyn Turner, Executive Director, Zion Travelers Cooperative Center

We were also joined by former Vice President Al Gore, whose presence and remarks acknowledged both the devastation and the organizing power that have defined the Gulf South over the past two decades. His words underscored the global significance of Gulf South leadership and affirmed the urgency of climate action rooted in justice.

The program opened with music from local jazz musicians, grounding us in the soul of New Orleans, and closed with a moving poem by Artis Burney, a Mississippi poet whose words carried both lament and vision. Local food from Sweet Anoni’s Catering nourished us as we shared stories, grief, and commitments. Our audience members and speakers co-created an altar which grounded us in our collective spirituality.

For me, this work is both deeply personal and deeply spiritual. I have lived with asthma since childhood, and I know what it feels like when the air itself makes breathing hard. In high school, I started an environmental club because I could see—even as a teenager—that the climate crisis was not only about the planet, but about people: who gets clean air, who doesn’t; who gets to rebuild, who is left behind. Over time, I came to understand that this is environmental racism—and that our fight for climate justice is inseparable from the struggle for racial justice and human dignity.

As I organized this event, I carried with me the memory of Katrina as both devastation and resistance. The storm exposed the depth of racial inequity in this country, but it also revealed the strength of communities who organized, resisted, and rebuilt with courage and faith. Two decades later, those lessons still guide us.

In my work with GreenFaith, I lean on spirituality not as something abstract, but as a grounding force. Faith reminds us that justice is sacred. That resistance can itself be a form of prayer. That telling the truth in community, through story and song and witness, is an act of healing. At Katrina 20, I felt this sacred power in the room—elders and youth, pastors and organizers, scientists and poets—holding each other in grief and hope.

The witness shared at the TEP Center will not stay in New Orleans. It will travel to COP30 in Brazil, where world leaders will again debate how to respond to the climate crisis. Our message is clear: frontline communities in the Gulf South are not sacrifice zones. Our lives, our stories, our faith, and our future must be part of the path forward.

Katrina 20 was remembrance, but it was also resistance. It was a testament to the power of people who refuse to be forgotten and who believe, with every breath, that another world is possible.

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The U.S. government provides billions of dollars each year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry—even as vital programs like healthcare, food assistance, and clean energy face budget cuts.

Subsidizing this harm is unjust. That’s why GreenFaith brought together faith leaders from across the country to speak out. United by shared moral convictions, they’ve signed a powerful letter opposing the reconciliation bill and calling on Congress to reject fossil fuel giveaways. 

Read the Full Faith Leaders Letter

Read the Press Release: Religious Leaders to US Senate: “Reject Immoral Reconciliation Bill” – GreenFaith’s call on government to prioritize care for the poor and Earth, not fossil fuel subsidies and tax cuts for the wealthy!

Read the report: Subsidizing Ruin is Wrong — GreenFaith’s new report exposes how public funds are propping up climate destruction and deepening inequality.

GreenFaith’s new report reveals:

• The deep-rooted history and scale of fossil fuel subsidies in the United States
• Ongoing government plans to expand these subsidies even further
• Moral and spiritual teachings from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism that oppose this injustice
• A bold, values-driven vision for a just transition to a clean energy future

Download the Full Report Here

Faith communities have a powerful role to play in advocating for climate justice. Subsidizing Ruin is Wrong equips readers with the knowledge, ethical grounding, and urgency needed to demand that public funds stop supporting environmental destruction—and instead fuel a future rooted in compassion, equity, and sustainability.

The post Subsidizing Ruin is Wrong: A New Report from GreenFaith appeared first on GreenFaith.

With deep sorrow and profound gratitude, GreenFaith mourns the passing of Pope Francis—a towering spiritual leader in the global movement for climate justice. His climate change legacy will endure for generations not only within the Catholic community but among faith communities worldwide.

Pope Francis made care for the Earth, which he always linked with care for the poor, a central moral concern of our time. He did so in a way that represents the best of religious leadership – by communicating with grace and power and by acting in a way that reflects religious values. 

Through Laudato Si’, written in the lead-up to the historic Paris Climate Agreement, he elevated the climate crisis to the top of the global faith community’s agenda, insisting that environmental destruction is a grave ethical and spiritual failing. Building on the work of previous Popes, courageous Catholic religious orders, and visionaries from other Christian denominations and religions, his articulation of “integral ecology” inspired not only Catholics, but also leaders across traditions. He sparked a new wave of eco-theological reflection and action among Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and more. 

After the adoption of the Paris Agreement, he followed his spectacularly written encyclical with numerous actions which showed the seriousness of his commitment to “our common home.” 

He engaged directly with the fossil fuel industry, calling its leaders to account for their destructive greed and urging Catholics to divest their holdings in coal, oil and gas companies. 

He criticized wealthy nations’ inadequate response to the climate crisis, calling for rich countries to ensure access to clean energy for all and protection for the world’s most vulnerable. 

He supported a response across the Catholic Church to sustainable practices, eco-spirituality and prophetic witness.

We honor Pope Francis for showing the world that faith can be a beacon of hope, justice, and transformation in the face of ecological destruction. 

At this very moment, when hard-won progress on climate change faces grave threats, it falls to all of us, whatever our faith, to honor his legacy by ensuring that our temples, mosques, dojos, gurudwaras, churches and places of prayer and reflection all serve as beacons for climate justice.

May his memory be a blessing—and a call to action.

Contact

Rev. Fletcher Harper, fletcher@greenfaith.org, +1-201-390-0094

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Houston, March 10: Forty religious leaders gathered in Houston over the weekend and at the CERAWeek protests on Monday, calling for an immediate end to fossil fuel subsidies and the expansion of fossil gas (LNG) infrastructure.

“Every year, the oil industry receives $20 billion in Federal subsidies which pollute the air, destroy the climate, and harm communities, while enriching corporations that have knowingly caused the climate crisis,” said the Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise, GreenFaith USA Coordinator. “That’s $2 million every hour to one of the world’s wealthiest industries, while 2.5 million US children are homeless. This is morally obscene. The giveaways must stop.”

Expanded oil and gas subsidies, which are included in current versions of upcoming Federal tax legislation, would support a massive expansion of LNG projects which will more than double national export capacity by 2030. This expansion would lock in decades of methane emissions, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years. 

“The impacts of climate change—wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and extreme heat—are already devastating communities nationwide,” said Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Founder and CEO of Dayenu, a national Jewish climate organization. “What is under threat is nothing less than our ability to live l’dor vador, from generation to generation.” In 2024 alone, the U.S. suffered 27 climate-related disasters, each causing over $1 billion in damages, disproportionately affecting low-income communities.

The visiting faith leaders from eight states and Washington DC met with clergy from across Texas, including pastors in African American communities adjacent to fossil fuel facilities. They learned about the prevalence among residents of respiratory and skin diseases and cancers, along with the levels of subsidies provided to the industry, including foregone tax revenues amounting to $1 billion in Harris County alone.

“The government is threatening to cut trillions in life-saving federal funding while continuing to send billions in tax dollars to fossil fuel corporations,” said Ilka Vega, Executive for Economic and Environmental Justice at United Women in Faith of the United Methodist Church.  “We have to stand up to the harm of this administration funding the climate crisis while systematically slashing funds to healthcare, affordable housing, and education.

On Sunday and Monday, religious leaders took part in public demonstrations outside of the annual oil and gas industry CERAWeek conference, a large gathering of fossil fuel industry officials and their government and financial supporters. Events included a “Climate Revival” featuring grammy-nominated vocalist and 2025 Earth Day Ambassador Antonique Smith along with other faith leaders who prayed, sang and shared messages with participants and passersby. Carrying signs saying “No Faith in Fossil Fuels” and t-shirts emblazoned with “End Polluter Handouts”, people of faith joined hundreds of other activists demanding “Clean Air Not Another Billionaire”.  “Religion and spirituality are about waking up,” said Adam Lobel, a Guiding Teacher with the Buddhist organization One Earth Sangha. “It’s delusional to keep using tax resources – meant for the common good – to subsidize a wealthy industry. We need to wake up and stop it.”

The faith leaders issued a letter to President Trump, Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Thune calling on them to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies and stop the LNG expansion. “Our faiths call us to be caretakers, not destroyers,” the letter states. “We call on you to champion tax legislation that eliminates fossil fuel subsidies, to end LNG expansion, and to redirect funds toward a better future. The moral choice is clear—protecting life, not prolonging and increasing harm.” 

Religious leaders and people of diverse faiths are invited to sign the letter through April 15, when individual tax returns are due.

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In the lead-up to the historic Paris Climate Agreement, a piece of theological communication made perhaps a greater impact than any other single piece of article, video or book. Laudato Si’ galvanized Catholics, Christians, and people of diverse faiths around the globe to put their beliefs into action for the Earth. Ten years later, the world needs religious insight and inspiration on the climate crisis more than ever.

That is why we are proud to announce a new initiative, Sacredly Grounded; designed to elevate the messages of up-and-coming religious communicators around the globe. We know that there are skilled writers and public speakers, early or in the middle of their careers, who have something important to say about climate justice from the perspective of their faith or spirituality. 

We want to help them communicate more effectively and to a wider audience.

About Sacredly Grounded

Sacredly Grounded is a year-long program for 12 eco-theologians or religious leaders from diverse faiths and spiritualities around the world who are passionate about the intersection between religion and climate justice. 

The application deadline is 15 January 2025. 

GreenFaith seeks early- to mid-career candidates with some experience in writing and speaking publicly about these issues, and who want to learn to amplify their message as part of GreenFaith’s growing global grassroots multi-faith work for climate justice.

What Participants Receive and Produce

Participants will attend a week-long Convocation in Nairobi Kenya (May 2025), undertake spokesperson, narrative and message development training, and receive a stipend of $2,000.00 USD while completing the following:

• Writing an 1,500-2,500 word essay linking themes of climate justice with their home country or region and their faith. GreenFaith will publish these essays in an e-book during 2025.
• Working with GreenFaith to develop short videos expressing their eco-theology, and responding to various matters of importance to the climate during 2025
• Working with GreenFaith to develop and place op eds at key moments in the lead-up to COP30 in Brazil 
• Speaking on webinars and to the media about their religious beliefs in relation to climate justice in their country or region
• Developing resources to assist religious leaders in speaking about these issues

The expectation is that participants will spend an average of 4-5 hours weekly on this initiative. Applicants from all religions and geographies are welcome to apply. The program will be conducted in English, though written and spoken content will be produced in a variety of languages. 

Apply Now

If you are a religious communicator – a theologian, a religious leader, an inspired writer or blogger – and you want to amplify a religious, ethical, spiritual message about climate justice, Sacredly Grounded may be for you. The application deadline is 15 January 2025. 

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COP29 in Azerbaijan, taking place between 11-22 November, has been designated as a finance COP, to be focused on determining a “new collective quantified goal” (NCQG), an amount of funding provided by governments for the energy transition and the climate crisis.

Click here to read GreenFaith’s commentary before COP29 begins.

GreenFaith is also hosting a side event at the Faith Pavilion called “Grassroots Faith Voices for Climate Justice” on Wednesday, 20 Nov at 10:30am GMT +4. The event will be live-streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/@FaithPavilion/streams

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