OTTAWA - Faith communities must stay hopeful and engaged to ensure governments live up to climate change commitments, says the leader of the United Church of Canada’s delegation to COP21.

PARIS - German Msgr. Josef Sayer prayed over a crowd of environmental activists at Saint-Merry Catholic Church, where they had joined for Mass after two weeks of intense lobbying in and around the U.N. climate change conference.

PARIS - Faith-based groups presented French President Francois Hollande with 1.8 million signatures of people seeking a fair climate change agreement that would stop global warming and protect the poor, reported religious groups in Paris for the U.N. climate change conference.

PARIS - One-hundred-fifty events to combat climate change, at the rate of roughly 30 per day, were taking place the week of Dec 7-11 in various parts of the French capital, against the backdrop of the U.N. climate change conference in the Paris suburb of Le Bourget.

PARIS - A senior Vatican official urged a roomful of world leaders "to take action" and work in a spirit of solidarity to come up with an accord to combat global warming before it is too late.

VATICAN CITY - Heads of state discussing carbon emission limits must create a global and "transformative" agreement built on justice, solidarity and fairness, a papal representative told the U.N. climate conference in Paris.

PARIS - Hundreds of thousands of people in at least 150 countries around the world demanded action on climate change on the eve of a U.N. conference that aimed to find agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.

Mark your calendars. Find all your friends and tell them to do the same. From Nov. 30 to Dec. 11, 50,000 heads of state, foreign dignitaries, private sector innovators and environmental advocates will gather in Paris to discuss global initiatives related to curbing the effects of climate change — this year’s biggest UN environmental conference. Frankly, I can barely control my excitement.