The Anglican Communion’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Martha Jarvis, is currently with the Anglican delegation at COP28 in Dubai. She has written this update.  

The 28th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change began today with thousands of delegates convening in Dubai Expo City.  

The Anglican delegation started their engagement by attending the opening ceremony plenary and later Talanoa dialogue - a conversation between different faiths based on an Indigenous Fijian approach to dialogue bringing truth and storytelling to difficult topics.Archbishop Hosam Naoum, Archbishop of Jerusalem and Primate of the Middle East, opened the event by welcoming everyone to Christ Church Jebel Ali, an Anglican Church in Dubai. He said: “As we open our hearts to difficult and challenging conversations, it is an opportunity to be in the presence of the divine.”  

The delegation is at the conference to lift the voices of millions of people in climate vulnerable communities across the world with calls on phasing out fossil fuels fairly, resilience building in those communities and just finance through the loss and damage fund and longer-term reform.  

It has been a good start, and we look forward to the World Climate Action Summit tomorrow. Please pray that world leaders will reflect hope, justiceand the voice of the most vulnerable in their statements.'