Church of England Details Climate Change Plans

The Church of England has unveiled details of how it intends to implement its own climate change plans over the coming seven years in a new report issued on November 4th 2009.  Its release comes two days after a key meeting held in the UK which saw discussions take place between some of the most globally significant religious figures and Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. 

Church and Earth: Climate Change Document

In a document entitled Church and Earth, the Church – one of ten faith organisations represented at the Nov 2nd meeting - explains how it intends to both mitigate the causes of climate change, and adapt to the demands of a changing world.  In doing this, it sets out multiple short and long-term climate change targets, including:

• Hitting a 2020 CO2 emission reduction target of 42 per cent
• Hitting a 2050 CO2 emission reduction target of 80 per cent
• Calculating individual carbon footprints for the 16,000+ churches that belong to it over the next three years, and drawing up recommendations for them
• Implementing the planting of trees on land belonging to the church
• Setting up collaborations between it and religious organisations in undeveloped parts of the world, where climate change is already taking hold

Religion and Climate Change

“The challenge facing the human race in the 21st century is in our relation with the earth and in particular how we are going to help one another to adapt to the reality of rapid climate change”, Dr Richard Chartres - the Church of England’s principal climate change figure and the Bishop of London – stated, drawing up a link between religion and climate change. 

He continued: “The Christian community is being recalled by this crisis to a more genuinely Biblical view of creation and our place within it.  It is clear that the effects of climate change will be felt first by some of the most vulnerable communities in the world and those least able to bear the costs of adaptation.”

Three years ago, the Church of England launched a carbon reduction campaign named ‘Shrinking the Footprint’, to which all its dioceses and churches have adhered.   Among the environmentally friendly technologies that have been introduced as a result of this are solar panels, which a number of churches in England now boast.  One diocese in the North of England, meanwhile, has ushered in a carbon offset scheme, through which trees are being planted in East Africa. 

The Church and Earth report came about at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury,  the Church Commissioners and the WWF (World Wildlife Fund). 

“At a time when the negotiations in Copenhagen are at the front of our minds, it's heartening to see that a major institution such as the Church of England is taking a lead in a way that our government and the other nations could learn from”, WWF deputy director Oliver Smith commented.  “The plans that have been announced are truly challenging, and are part of a set of commitments of many traditions. 

“The faiths have taken a moral stance, committing themselves to action whatever the outcome in Copenhagen”