Climate pilgrimage launch – final destination: Paris

Emma Thorén is pilgrim priest and leader of the two-month long climate pilgrimage between Uppsala and Lund, culminating in the climate summit in Paris in December.Photo:Emanuel Eriksson.

Sunday 12 July sees the start in Uppsala of the Swedish pilgrimage to the climate summit in Paris in December.The pilgrimage is part of a global campaign, ACT Now for Climate Justice, to encourage world leaders to agree on a just and ambitious climate agreement.

Priest Emma Thorén is pilgrimage leader and is taking part in the launch at Uppsala cathedral on Sunday at 11am. She will then walk all the way from Uppsala to Lund, a distance of 630 km. In Lund there will be a ceremony and the pilgrimage will then continue from the German town of Flensburg, where it will be joined by Danish and Norwegian pilgrimages.

The final destination is Paris and the climate summit, COP21, which will take place during the first two weeks of December. In Paris the pilgrims will also be joined by pilgrimages from other parts of the world, including Africa.
Signatures will be collected en route from people who want the climate summit to settle on an ambitious and just climate agreement. The aim is to collect a million signatures, which will be handed over to the chair of the UN climate panel and a representative of the French government.

FACTS ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
The campaign is leading a global petition. The goal in Sweden is to collect at least 20,000 signatures, which will be handed over to the Swedish government ahead of the climate negotiations in December.

The campaign urges the Swedish government to undertake to:

• deliver fair, ambitious and strong climate actions at a level adequate to stop climate change and keep global warming well-below 2 degrees.
• pay out and increase climate funding using additional public funds to enable the poorest to adapt to climate change and continue to develop in a low-carbon sustainable way.
• ensure Sweden’s share of international climate funding totals a minimum of SEK 2.7 billion for 2016 and reaches at least SEK 4.2 billion annually by 2020 – with money that is not taken from the development aid budget.
• ensure Sweden’s emission reduction targets are at least 55 percent by 2030 and at least 95 percent by 2050.

On the website www.actclimate.se you can find out more about the campaign and sign the petition to Swedish politicians and urge the world’s leaders to take the climate issue seriously.

In Sweden, the campaign is headed by the Church of Sweden and Diakonia, and Swedish members of ACT Alliance, but it also has the support of the majority of Sweden’s churches via the National Christian Council of Sweden, Church of Sweden Youth, Equmeniakyrkan, Equmenia and the Swedish Alliance Mission.

CONTACT
Emma Thorén, pilgrimage leader, tel. +46 (0)73-419 85 19
The Church of Sweden duty press service, tel. +46 (0)18-16 94 75