Feature story
The First Symposium on Climate and Environmental Change and the World of Work – Setting the Paths for Just Transitions, held 16–18 June in Rome, brought together 50 participants under the Future of Work, Labour after Laudato Si’ project – a collaboration between the International Catholic Migration Commission, International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the World Council of Churches (WCC) on climate justice and the future of work.
Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, said: “Urgent action is needed to transition toward a zero-carbon economy, so as to prevent the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. But while this transition is essential, if it is not done well, then we risk deepening inequality, displacing more communities, and further disrupting livelihoods.”
Pierre Martinot-Lagarde, special advisor on religious affairs at the ILO, set out the research that had shaped the gathering. A white paper drawing on three online consultations, 80 analytical sources, and the voices of workers, communities, and faith actors across Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America had identified three axes: linking climate and social justice; promoting care for both nature and society; and pursuing the common good in extractive industries, such as mining, oil, and gas.
In the opening panel on faith perspectives, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development at the Vatican, said: “There can be no dignified work for people if it is carried out in a devastated common home.”
Peralta and Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata, WCC programme director for Life, Justice, and Peace, presented a joint reflection built on four principles: cutting carbon pollution while restoring damaged nature; holding to account the wealthiest countries and sectors of society, who bear by far the heaviest responsibility for climate change and environmental damage; protecting affected workers, communities, and regions through retraining, social protection, and fairer global financial rules; and planning inclusively, through open dialogue among governments, employers, workers, faith communities, and Indigenous peoples.
At its core, they said, a truly just transition calls for “changing the whole of the economy – transforming relationships, institutions, and systems in ways that uphold justice, dignity, and care for all of God’s creatures.”
In the panel on understanding, Anneke Gerken, a PhD student in theology at the University of Basel and part of the team organising the WCC Ecumenical Youth Hub on Eco-Diakonia, put it directly: “The obstacle is an economic system that externalises costs while internalising profit.”
Gerken added, “The challenge is turning what should happen into what actually happens, and ensuring young people are heard rather than running into the walls of a broken system.”
The panel on transformation pushed the argument further. Elena Cedillo, programme executive for Climate Justice at the Lutheran World Federation, drew on more than 40 interviews and focus groups with faith communities to make the case that a just transition requires not only new technologies, but a rethinking of development and power. “Swapping a coal mine for a solar park is not progress if communities remain excluded from decisions,” she said. Her research cited a 2024 UN secretary-general’s panel report finding that 54 percent of critical energy transition minerals sit on or near Indigenous territories. Free, prior, and informed consent, Cedillo said, must be non-negotiable.
The symposium was the first in a cycle of three. The next two gatherings will address food supply chains and decent work, and then artificial intelligence and the future of labour – questions the WCC’s Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action frame as inseparable from the call to repent, transform, and stand with the vulnerable.
WCC Sustainability and Economy of Life
Faith and labour organizations forge new paths in just transitions
