Kate Varley Alonso speaking at a Diocesan climate change summit in 2023.
Earlier this year, former Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry named 17 delegates to represent the Episcopal Church at the 29th session of the Conference of Parties of the U.N Framework Convention on Climate Change, also known as COP29.
The church is sending a small in-person delegation of three representatives to the event, which will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan. A larger delegation will participate virtually in the proceedings. The discussion seeks to balance the urgency of climate change with concerns about ongoing human rights violations; Azerbaijan in particular following the expulsion of more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023, according to the Episcopal Church’s press release.
Kate Varley Alonso, a member of the Bishop’s Commission on Climate Change in the Diocese of Los Angeles, will participate virtually as one of the Episcopal Church’s delegates. She will report on the topics of mitigation and adaptation, and well as gender.
“As Episcopalians, and as people of faith, we have a moral obligation to speak about this, to raise our voices, to invade conversation, to invite engagement, to begin to be a place of resilience, and to be place of respite,” Alonso said. “It has very real and tangible implications for all of us right here at home. Because when we speak with one voice as an interfaith community about phasing out fossil fuels, about mitigation and adaptation, about our responsibility to fund the damage efforts, I really think that it goes from a macro level all the way down to ‘what can I do right here, right now, in this moment?'”
Lester Mackenzie visits the Blue Zone to observe the report of the Green Climate Fund to COP28 in Dubai. Photos: Courtesy of Lester Mackenzie
The Rev. Lester Mackenzie, who recently resigned as rector of St. Mary’s Church, Laguna Beach, in order to take a position as chief of mission program on Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s staff, also returns as a delegate after attending COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2024.
Delegates will report back to the presiding bishop’s office and also will host public reports, discussions, and events. The delegates are part of a larger faith-based coalition that includes other Anglican Communion representatives advocating at COP29 for a faith-perspective on creation care and climate justice.
Alonso said that another role of delegates from faith organizations is to stand in solidarity with countries and parties that may face the greatest consequences of climate change, despite having contributed much less to the problem than industrialized larger nations.
“The role of the interfaith community and interfaith representation at the COP is to give voice to the voiceless,” Alonso said. “Part of our Episcopal call is to befriend the stranger, to lift up the marginalized, to walk alongside those that are the least among us, if you will.”
A lifelong Episcopalian, Alonso said that she did not wake up to the climate crisis until 2016. As she began to learn more about the crisis, she wanted to get involved, and use the skillset that she had developed in a career of writing, producing, and communications to work for the good of the earth.
In an effort to get involved, and help to get others involved in climate justice efforts, Alonso co-hosted a reading of climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe’s book Saving Us with the Rev. Daniel Tan. Tan was a member of the Bishop’s Commission on Climate Change; and Alonso soon was invited to join the commission.
Alonso said that she applied for the COP29 delegation not thinking that she would be selected for the role, but because of her conviction that anyone who is inclined to dive in and step up in the fight for climate justice should go for it and get involved wherever they can.
“We’re all touched by climate change. Every day we feel more and more that climate change is right here, right now, affecting us in our lives,” Alonso said. “I want to represent the Los Angeles diocese, and I’m so proud that I was selected. It’s just the honor of a lifetime, truly.”
The Episcopal Church invites and encourages everyone to promote global climate justice during and beyond COP29, and to participate in the following related events:
Nov. 16, 9 a.m. PT (12 p.m. ET): Liturgy for Planetary Crisis: Episcopal worship service during COP29. Register online.
Dec. 3, 4 p.m. PT (7 p.m. ET): Episcopal COP29 closing event and report from delegates. Register online.