| ON HIS first anniversary as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown received an unusual gift — a delegation of cycling clerics on a mission to tackle climate change.
Their bicycle baskets brimming with petitions and their cassocks flowing, ten church leaders cycled to Downing Street to urge the Government to make tougher emissions cuts in the Climate Change Bill, as it enters its final stages in Parliament.
The Revd Michael Perry, the Rector of Cam Vale in Somerset, whose church in Queen Camel won a Church Times Green Church Award last year, said: “Climate change is going to affect profoundly our society, and we need to be aware of just how profoundly it will affect us.”
The clergy delivered 10,000 climate-change petitions, collected by Tearfund from Christians throughout Britain, to Downing Street.
Ben Niblett, Tearfund’s campaigns manager, said: “These petitions represent a strong groundswell of opinion from the Church that the Climate Change Bill must be tougher. In its current form, it lacks the teeth it needs to tackle the negative effects of climate change which is already affecting many of the world’s poorest communities.”
Tearfund believes that the Bill must include a target to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. This is equal to a three-per-cent cut in UK emissions each year. It is also essential, the charity says, that the country’s share of the aviation and shipping industries must not be excluded from the Bill, as is currently proposed. “The science is telling us that this is absolutely necessary,” Mr Niblett said.
The call comes as the final preparations are being made for the G8 Summit, where Gordon Brown and fellow leaders of the world’s leading industrialised nations will gather in Japan for their annual meeting from Monday.
Before the Summit, representatives of the world’s main religions from the G8 nations met this week to discuss world poverty, climate change, and violence. Speaking before this meeting, Bishop Huber of the Evangelical Church in Germany said that the faith leaders would be “calling for respect for creation, demanding the rights of the poorest to participate, and ensuring that the voices of the countries of the South are not left out”.
In a separate move, Roman Catholic bishops from the G8 nations have appealed to G8 leaders to reaffirm previous commitments made to developing countries, and to agree action to slow down climate change.
“The poor, who have contributed least to the human activities that aggravate global climate change, are likely to experience a disproportionate share of its harmful effects, including potential conflicts, escalating energy costs, and health problems,” the Bishops said.
News that the Japanese Prime Minister, who is chairing this year’s G8, has put climate change at the heart of the summit’s agenda has been welcomed by faith leaders and campaign groups. Yasuo Fukuda is seeking to solidify support for last year’s G8 commitment to halve emissions by 2050 — some 30-per-cent lower than campaigners are now calling for.
However, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, wants the G8 to be more ambitious, and to deliver additional short-term targets. Tearfund agrees, calling for 25- to 40-per-cent emissions cuts by 2020.
Yet few are convinced that the G8 will commit publicly to anything like what the scientists say is needed. The British Government’s climate negotiator warned recently that the summit was unlikely to reach a consensus. “We are not going to have a major breakthrough in the global effort on climate change because the conditions at the moment are not conducive. We are still in the process of building the political consensus that we need,” said John Ashton.
Speaking last week, Tony Blair suggested that efforts would be better placed to “describe a realistic pathway” towards future targets to be discussed at the UN climate-change conference in Copenhagen next year.
Developing this theme, Mr Niblett at Tearfund said: “Efforts [at the G8] must not detract from the UN climate-change process, which brings all countries to the table. . . What is needed is a global deal that is fair, and provides developing nations with a low-carbon path to development — not relying on the outdated carbon-hungry technology of the industrial revolution.”
Yet time is running short for talking. For the sake of the poor, action is imperative.
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