AFTER being told that there was money available, members of the Synod were presented with one option of what to do with it: put it towards achieving the Scottish Episcopal Church’s plans to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.
As they came back from lunch, members were met by the sight of textile panels draped over the low walls at the entrance to the church where they were meeting.
The artist-in-residence at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, Jonathan Baxter, explained that the panels had been produced as part of a project, Stitches for Survival. They were displayed at COP26, and were now being used whenever there was a “need for good mood music to inspire people to take positive action”.
Campaigners from Christian Climate Action (CCA) stood around talking to members of the Synod. “We’re encouraging the clergy and laity who are gearing up to try to do more for the climate,” one campaigner, Abz Barker, said.
Three years ago, the Synod made a commitment to achieving net zero by 2030 (News, 11 December 2020), but there was concern that, faced with the costs of the transition, some might attempt to delay this.
“It’s so desperate, it’s got to be immediate: the divestment and everything else,” Ms Barker said. Churches, though generally doing good work on the climate, sometimes needed a “kick up the bum”.
The vice-convener of the Provincial Environment Group (PEG), Cathy Johnston, and the group’s consultant, Robert Woodford, provided an update on their work since the previous year’s meeting (News, 17 June 2022).
Mr Woodford outlined updates to the Net Zero Toolkit, to be used by churches as their central resource as they attempted to reduce emissions. The plan being developed, and for which two motions sought provisions, also involved the appointment of a paid Net Zero Champion in each diocese.
Together with a request for funding from the General Synod, the PEG also envisages that churches would receive grant funding from public bodies.
Dr Stephen Goodyear (Aberdeen & Orkney) disputed the credibility of this plan. The Government would be unlikely to fund projects for buildings that were not extensively used throughout the week, he suggested.
The plan was “extremely expensive” for every tonne of carbon dioxide that it saved: carbon offsetting should play a larger part in the strategy.
Responding on behalf of the PEG, the Revd Lewis Shand Smith, who was previously the chief executive of the Ombudsman Service, said that “the first step is absolutely to reduce our carbon footprint. Offsetting will help, but we’ve got to start somewhere.”
Others expressed concern about the funding of the transition, including the Revd Amanda Fairclough (Argyll & The Isles), who said: “It’s really hard to write a blank cheque for this.”
Bridget Campbell, the convener of the Standing Committee, reassured members that it would not be an “open-ended commitment”, but that “year by year, we will be specifying what we can afford to spend.”
Dr James Currall (Moray, Ross & Caithness) emphasised that there was a “radical inequality in how the earth’s resources are used”, and asked: “Can our rather technocratic strategy help us to bring hope to an anxious world through the resources of the Christian faith? Surely our approach has to start and end with God.”
The convener of the PEG, the Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld & Dunblane, the Rt Revd Ian Paton, agreed: “This is a whole-Church issue and a gospel issue, not just a technical issue.”
After further debate, the motions approving the PEG plan and asking the Standing Committee to approve funding, if considered appropriate, passed with 75 to 80 per cent in favour.
LAST Friday afternoon, elements of the net-zero plan appeared in motions brought by the Buildings Committee.
The convener, Professor Peter Sharp, introduced several motions. The first two made adjustments to health-and-safety policy to define more clearly responsibility for oversight, developed in the aftermath of an accident involving scaffolding at St Peter’s, Peterhead, in 2021, in which two parishioners were killed.
The second motion, 25, proposed a change to Canon 35 to specify that changes to church buildings should “adhere to the Scottish Episcopal Church Net Zero Guidance”.
Dr Goodyear expressed concern that, because the guidance could change, the canon could in effect be amended without going through the proper process for changing canon law.
He also suggested that it was wrong to ask charges to “adhere” to guidelines, and that a weaker phrase, such as “be cognisant of” would be more consistent with the spirit of guidelines.
The revisions to Canon 35 passed its first reading comfortably: clergy: 46-2, with four recorded abstentions; laity 39-6, with three recorded abstentions; bishops nem. con.
A further motion altered guidelines on clergy housing, requiring vestries to appoint a suitable person to ensure, among other things, that energy-performance certificates are up to date.
Finally, members voted to extend the appeal period for decisions of the Buildings Committee.
AFTER refreshments on Friday afternoon, motions put forward by the Liturgy Committee meant that Pastoral Offices for priests, deacons, and Readers were added to Canon 22, after receiving a first reading the previous year (News, 17 June 2022).
The only substantive contribution from the floor was a request for an amendment to an amendment, to make the language more inclusive: namely, removing the formulation “s/he” from a sentence to be added to the Pastoral Offices and replacing it with the pronoun “they”. The suggestion will be considered by the committee.
A proposition that liturgies for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, for use with the revised Scottish Liturgy 1982, together with A Service of the Word 2015, be added to the schedule to Canon 22 was also carried.