CHURCH leaders and Christian charities have welcomed the U-turn by the Prime Minister, who will now go to the COP27 climate summit in Egypt this month after he previously said he would not attend in person.
Replying on Twitter to the Prime Minister’s announcement, the Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, the Church of England’s lead bishop on the environment, said: “Thank you. This is a welcome decision. It is vital that UK diplomacy and policy continues to recognise that #COP27 is addressing the gravest threat to life — for all of us but particular for the economically poorest — on our single island planet home.”
The chief of UK policy and advocacy at Christian Aid, Sophie Powell, said: “It’s good to see the Prime Minister has realised it’s now sensible to be at COP27. If he’s going to attend, he should at least ensure it’s not a wasted trip.
“This is his chance to show he understands the full scope of the harm caused by the climate crisis and advocate for proper support for the world’s most vulnerable. Specifically, he should back the formation of a loss-and-damage fund to help the people that have faced permanent losses and damages caused by climate impacts.”
The meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, which is due to begin on Sunday, will be the first held in Africa for six years, and many are hoping that having the summit on a continent facing some of the worst consequences of the climate crisis will sharpen minds and result in a better outcome for developing countries. Last year’s meeting in Glasgow, led by the UK Government, was seen not to meet the needs of more vulnerable countries.
In recognition of their historic responsibility for causing climate change, since 2009 richer countries have promised to deliver $100 billion in climate finance to help poorer countries decarbonise and adapt to climate change. This funding had been due to paid by 2020, but, in Glasgow, at the end of 2021, they admitted that they still had not paid.
Jessica Bwali, a climate campaigner at Tearfund, said: “If this year’s COP summit really is to be an ‘African COP’, then it’s vital that African voices are heard, and that world leaders arrive ready to offer meaningful help for communities on the front lines of the climate crisis. A good start would be for rich nations to pay their long overdue climate finance bill, helping vulnerable countries adapt to a less predictable future. The solutions to surviving the climate emergency exist; we just need the money.”
AlamyChildren at the Maker Faire in Cairo last week, a DIY craft festival using recycled material, in preparation for COP27
Many in Africa are pleased to see the world’s attention focused on their climate plight. The Revd Dr Rachel Mash is the environmental co-ordinator of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, and Secretary to the Anglican Communion Environmental Network. She recently organised a youth ecumenical summit, “Climate Yes!”, in South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, and Italy, to speak to young Christians about climate change.
She said: “We heard that climate impacts are most severe on the youngest children, in terms of malnutrition and loss of education and homes: climate change is child abuse. Across Africa, we heard of young people calling for a halt on new fossil-fuel projects and instead want to see a just transition with green jobs created. It is time for Africa to rise.”
Among the youth voices in the UK, Chris Manktelow, of the Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN), called for COP27 to create a fund to address “loss and damage”: the permanent losses and damage caused by climate change that cannot be adapted to. He said: “We at YCCN want wealthy nations to establish a loss-and-damage financing facility to compensate climate-vulnerable nations and repair relationships with communities that are suffering because of our actions.
“Churches in the UK should be praying that leaders at the conference will make wise decisions and listen to the voices of those most affected by the climate crisis.”
Although key decisions about the global response to climate change are taken at the COP summit, ultimately, it relies on the actions and policies of individual countries. Speaking before the Prime Minister’s attendance U-turn, the CEO of Arocha UK, Andy Atkins, said that there was support among Christians for climate action at home. “The Climate Sunday campaign in 2021 showed massive UK and Ireland churches’ backing for our governments to advocate faster emissions cuts internationally and be bolder in their actions at home.
“Now, the UK government is under suspicion of abandoning climate leadership. If the PM Rishi Sunak is not going to COP27, he could reassure all of his commitment by cancelling the oil exploration licences issued so irresponsibly by his predecessor.”
The focus on UK fossil fuels was echoed by a Green Christian trustee, Paul Bodenham. He said: “There is one powerful way for the UK Government to bring the fossil-fuel era to an end. The UK is still COP President, and yet currently we exempt fossil-fuel majors from our windfall tax if they invest in more fossil-fuel extraction. That’s utterly perverse. Given the immoral profits they are earning, the Prime Minister should announce an end to that exemption.”
Manchester and St Albans have become the latest Church of England dioceses to make a stand against fossil fuels by becoming the 12th and 13th to make formal disinvestment commitments. The charity Operation Noah welcomed the move, and said that, within two years, the C of E had gone from zero to 13 dioceses’ pulling funds out of fossil fuels; the charity believes that as churches are seen as moral actors, their disinvestment on ethical grounds carries greater weight than those of other institutions, and undermines the political and social licence of fossil-fuel corporations.
The push to end the expansion of fossil fuels has also been backed by faith leaders around the world, who are supporting the campaign for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is modelled on the similarly named treaty which helped curtail the growth of nuclear weapons in the 20th century, and calls for a binding mechanism to prevent new fossil fuel projects and an equitable phase out of existing coal, oil and gas and production.
With COP27 soon to begin, the Roman Catholic relief agency CAFOD is seeking to ensure that the UK promises made at COP26 last year are kept. More than 10,000 people have signed CAFOD’s petition urging the Government to fulfil its promises from a year ago and fix the broken food system. In Glasgow last year, the UK signed up to the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, which committed it to supporting sustainable agriculture, which promotes food security and benefits the environment.
CAFOD’s head of public policy, Graham Gordon, said: “The global food system is broken. This is shown most acutely in East Africa, where millions are on the brink of starvation as deadly droughts devastate harvests. The UK committed to support a sustainable farming model globally that puts people and the environment first last year at COP26, but we’ve seen almost no progress in delivering. We need the UK to step up and put people and the environment first.”
For last year’s COP26, more than 1000 parishes rang their bells as a symbolic warning on the eve of the summit in Glasgow. The man who started the initiative Ring Out for the Climate is encouraging churches to do the same this year.
Edward Gildea, a volunteer organiser with Christian Aid, said: “Towers from Jersey to the Shetland Isles and from deepest Cornwall to quaintest Suffolk and 25 of our great cathedrals rang out, including Canterbury, St Paul’s, York Minster, Durham, Llandaff, Exeter, and Glasgow itself. A string of bells also rang out across the USA, Canada, and Australia.
“In many parishes, the bells became the focal point of community engagement. There were vigils with prayers, songs, poems, candles, and banners as the bells rang. It is that sense of communities’ finding their voice that I am trying to encourage particularly this year.” He has suggested that bells be rung tomorrow at 5 p.m.
Joe Ware is a senior climate journalist at Christian Aid