Eco Comment – COP 29 and Some Questions

Well, COP 29 might be said to have gotten off to a controversial start. The Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev has told the United Nations (UN) climate conference that oil and gas are a “gift of God” and that nations “should not be blamed” for having fossil fuel reserves. (BBC News reporting form COP 29 in Baku.) 

The statements could be justified, but how these ‘gifts’ are or should be used might be down to personal interpretation. This could lead to political responses with either a small p and/or a big P. It leads me to ask, how far should the church be political?  

The Eco Group are currently looking at the criteria for the next A Rocha Eco Church Award.  A few of the survey questions are as follows: 

Our church recognises the impact of the climate and nature crises and has a plan or strategy to take action LOCALLY and/or NATIONALLY and/or GLOBALLY.  

Our church responds to the impact of the climate and nature crises and engages with environmental and social justice issues affecting the LOCAL area (e.g. housing and transport campaigns).

This question then asks for a response to both NATIONAL and GLOBAL issues.

Our church is involved in advocating/campaigning on environmental and social justice issues, locally, nationally or globally.  

Our church works in partnership with other organisations on environmental and/or climate justice issues, locally, nationally or globally. 

How should we answer these questions? If we answer in the affirmative, are we speaking from a personal point of view and experience or are we taking the lead from the clergy and the church of England as a whole?  

If we were in a different country would our answers be the same?  

On the second day of COP 29 the president said that Azerbaijan had been subject to “slander and blackmail” and that it had been as if “Western fake news media”, charities and politicians were “competing in spreading disinformation … about our country”. As you can imagine these remarks were strongly refuted by some, but no doubt made all delegates aware of the uphill struggle to lower carbon usage and emissions in the future. 

In the same way that I try to read more than one version of the news, I try to understand different points of view to my own. I’m rather stuck on this one though. Given the facts and figures presented by scientists the world over, I think that climate change is at a tipping point. We must act now. We also have to help those countries who are more at risk of the immediate calamitous effects of rising sea levels not least because so many of them haven’t been party to the continued use of fossil fuels that we in the west have.  

I’m currently reading a book about the ‘middle ages’ when the church was very much seen as a powerhouse. Granted it’s changed over the years, but it still counts as a lead for so many people. Maybe it’s time for us to be at the forefront of local/national/global actions on this issue. 

Please feel free to help us answer the questions quoted in this Eco Comment. The response to last week’s request was incredibly helpful. Thank you. 

Susan Morgan
Eco Group