Faith groups mobilize to keep fighting climate change as Trump pulls the U.S. out of the Paris accord. Hundreds of religious communities have joined with businesses, universities and colleges, major investors, local governments, states, and tribal nations in declaring they will continue the work of fulfilling the U.S. pledge in the Paris Agreement. Yale Climate Connections by Barbara Grady February 13, 2025 Religious groups around the U.S. are raising alarms and stepping up action as President Donald Trump’s administration has quickly moved to gut environmental regulations and federal programs for reducing climate pollution during his first weeks in office. While some evangelical leaders have backed Trump’s dismissal of climate science, most faith leaders say the teachings in the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, and other sacred texts compel people to be good stewards of the Earth and care for each other.“Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the Earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family,” wrote Pope Francis, leader of 1.3 billion Catholics around the world, in a papal message released January 1, 2025, reiterating the call in his encyclical – a formal letter – known as “Laudato Si’: Care for Our Common Home.”“At the beginning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suffering humankind,” the pope wrote in his January message.

Faith groups pledge action.......On Day One of his new administration, Trump began steps to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Some 839 faith communities joined with 2,978 businesses, 428 universities and colleges, 175 major investors, 362 local governments, 10 states, and 13 tribal nations in declaring they will continue the work of fulfilling the U.S. pledge to the Paris Agreement to reduce climate emissions to levels that would limit average global warming from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. The faith communities that signed onto the “America is All In” declaration include the Jewish Climate Action Networks of New York and Massachusetts, Methodist, Congregational, Lutheran, and Unitarian congregations all around the country and the large Roman Catholic Archdioceses of Anchorage, Cheyenne, Cleveland, Fort Wayne, Jackson, Mississippi, Louisville, Lubbock, New Orleans, and Newark, New Jersey, St. Augustine, Savannah, and Toledo, as well as many others. In late January, two U.S. Catholic organizations called on Trump to reverse the anti-environment executive orders he had issued, describing their “alarm at the extensive reversal of U.S. domestic and international climate policies.”

What religious groups are doing about climate change.....Some religious coalitions are already taking steps to fill the void expected to be left by the federal government abandoning programs for renewable energy and environmental justice. “We see the challenges ahead and we intend to bolster up,” said Codi Norred, executive director of Georgia Interfaith Power & Light, which counts hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, and spiritual groups as members or affiliates.* “We are in a mode of expansion,” he said. The group is asking the state public service commission to encourage the state utilities to build out more clean energy. They’re building resilience centers for people hurt by extreme weather disasters and bolstering funding to help more congregations install solar.Some 22,000 faith communities are involved with Interfaith Power & Light chapters in 40 states. Religious groups are also mobilizing around other issues, such as protecting immigrants, health care for poor and working-class people, and others in the crosshairs of Trump’s policies. The Jewish Climate Action Networks in Massachusetts, New York, and Maryland are galvanizing members to act at the state level. On another front, the pension boards of mainstream protestant denominations and the Reform Jewish Movement, as well as dozens of congregations of nuns, are preparing to file or vote for climate-related shareholder resolutions at major corporations this year, according to the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, whose members include hundreds of faith-based organizations.....read on      https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/02/faith-groups-mobilize-to-keep-fighting-climate-change-as-trump-pulls-u-s-out-of-paris-accord/?utm_source=Weekly+News+from+Yale+Climate+Connections&utm_campaign=0bfa673b51-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_02_13_09_43&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0bfa673b51-59447372      ......AND......                      Read: Trump and his allies could kill funding for lifesaving resiliency hubs