A FORMER Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams, is among 223 members of the clergy who have signed an open letter to the Church of England Pensions Board and Church Commissioners, calling on them to disinvest from fossil-fuel companies.
They write: “As Church of England clergy, we have watched with growing concern as fossil fuel companies continue to pursue dangerous expansion plans against the warnings of scientists and the UN — activities that displace communities and increase the frequency of extreme weather events.”
Among the signatories are ten bishops, including the Bishop of Kirkstall, in the diocese of Leeds, the Rt Revd Arun Arora; the Bishop of Dorchester, in the diocese of Oxford, the Rt Revd Gavin Collins; and the Bishop of Barking, in the diocese of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd Lynne Cullens.
The signatories say that, although they appreciate that the Church’s National Investing Bodies have worked to change the direction of fossil-fuel companies, the corporations have not responded to shift their activities at the speed and scale that is required.
Last week, the new CEO of Shell, Wael Sawan, was reported to have scrapped a target to reduce oil output by one to two per cent per year: a change of approach from his predecessor Ben van Beurden, who introduced the carbon-reduction targets.
In their letter, the C of E clergy write: “It is vital that the Church of England’s National Investing Bodies now fully divest from fossil fuel companies, given the 2023 deadline set by General Synod for divestment from oil and gas companies not aligned with the Paris Agreement. Continued engagement with these companies would require us to fund activities that we believe are deeply unethical.
“As the climate crisis deepens, divesting clergy pensions from fossil fuels is a matter of conscience and one that the Pensions Board must now urgently address. No company planning to extract new oil and gas can possibly be in compliance with the Paris Agreement.”
In 2021, the International Energy Agency announced that, to keep the average temperature rise below 1.5ºC, as outlined in the Paris Agreement, “no new oil and gas fields were to be approved for development”.
The letter was co-written by the Rector of St Mary’s, Walthamstow, the Revd Vanessa Conant, and a retired priest in the diocese of Birmingham, Canon John Nightingale.
Ms Conant said: “Recent wildfires in Canada, and the smoke that blanketed American cities is a stark reminder that the climate crisis isn’t a philosophical concept, but a real and present danger that will impact all of us, especially countries in the Global South that have done the least to cause the problem. But the climate crisis doesn’t just happen — we fund it, our politicians legislate it, and fossil-fuel companies extract it.
“As a Church, we have a responsibility to confront all of the ways in which ecological destruction gets normalised, and this must begin by removing our money from the fossil-fuel industry. As fossil-fuel companies continue to overheat the planet, under-invest in renewables, and explore for new oil and gas against scientific warnings, Church of England clergy can no longer accept that our money should be invested in fossil fuels, any more than we can accept that it should be invested in weapons, high-interest loans, or tobacco.”
The full text of the letter is available to read online.