From Mr Peter Greaves
Sir, - A good review by Bishop David Atkinson of Naomi Klein's
challenging book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the
climate (Books for Christmas, 28
November) nevertheless misses an important point that was
picked out by Paul Kingsnorth in the London Review of
Books (23 October), who said that she agreed that "the
simplest way to proceed might be to impose a cap on fossil fuel
extraction itself, rather than on the resulting emissions -
something which, incredibly, has never been discussed at any of
these global gatherings."
One of the first to propose this approach was Oliver Tickell in
his closely argued book Kyoto2 (2008). His proposal
involved companies' bidding for permits to extract coal, oil, or
gas up to a steadily diminishing global cap, estimated at that time
to yield about $1 trillion per year for a climate-change fund. This
could be used for programmes to address the causes and consequences
of climate change, particularly addressed to the needs of the most
vulnerable.
Nothing so far has curbed rising emissions, now at record
levels; why not give this idea a chance? Klein believes that mass
mobilisation is the only force with a chance to persuade
governments to act, but most such movements fail because they are
not focused enough. If the key issue is to keep fossil fuels in the
ground, a focus on the K2 approach to achieving that could have a
chance of success.
PETER GREAVES
2 The Plantation
London SE3 0AB
From Mr Julian Skidmore
Sir, - Joe Turner (Comment, 7
November) appeals for the Church to be in the vanguard of
action on climate change. So, surely it's worth mentioning two
things the Church can do right now. First, we can commit ourselves
to divesting from fossil fuels: the C of E has more than £60
million invested in this industry, and that's completely at odds
with its mandate for stewarding the planet. It is no good, for
example, to jet off to St Lucia and tell the victims of the latest
tropical storm that our shiny new aid programme was made possible
by investments in the fossil fuels that devastated their towns and
villages.
The Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) generated a
consultation questionnaire that failed to recognise any of our
responsibility in causing climate change, and ignored the
possibility that we could invest in clean energy instead. Now,
after a successful Synod motion in February 2014 calling for a
review of fossil-fuel-industry investments, the EIAG plans to delay
any response until the end of 2015. This has caused Bill McKibben
and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to condemn the delay publicly.
Second, churches in the UK can shift to clean energy now by
simply changing their suppliers to 100-per-cent renewable-energy
options. A small church might save around ten tonnes of carbon
dioxide per year by doing that - not only a concrete symbol of our
willingness to put God's ethics before our pockets, but also the
potential saving of up to 145,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year
in the UK, ignoring the knock-on effect in changing church members'
priorities in energy supply.
JULIAN SKIDMORE
21 Oakmeadow Way
Pype Hayes
Birmingham B24 0RZ