Maybe we are, we certainly should be. Two articles appeared in the Church Times in the last couple of weeks about how UK faith leaders are calling on their government to do more.
In early July, faith leaders called for new taxation to penalise fossil-fuel firms ahead of this year’s COP30 climate summit. A letter signed by former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, members of the C of E’s Environment Working Group and other UK faith leaders, set out how funds to tackle the climate crisis could be raised with higher taxes on net polluters.
“Our shared message is: if you are serious about delivering a clean energy transition, and action to support communities hit by climate breakdown at home and abroad, you must make polluters pay.”
According to the article, their calculations suggested that such a tax could raise some £20 billion over ten years, while removing the subsidies for North Sea oil & gas would raise a further £2.2 billion a year, and implementing a 2% tax on assets exceeding £10 million could raise £24 billion a year.
The letter goes on: “In many faith systems, paying taxes is part of the functioning of a just society. Christians see taxes as a tool to care for the poor and love their neighbour.”
Read the article here.
The second article appeared a week or so later, and related to a lobby, largely by Christians, to encourage members of the UK Parliament to treat the climate crisis with more urgency.
Led by the Bishop of Norwich, the Church of England’s lead bishop for the environment, the campaign laid out the moral case for accelerating the transition to clean energy and supporting those on the forefront of climate change. “As a Christian, I believe that caring for the climate is important because it honours God’s call to look after the earth and to love our neighbours, including those on the front line of the severe impact of climate change,” he said.
“My prayer is that politicians, indeed all of us, will truly wake up to the urgency of the threat and take urgent action on our carbon emissions. This is not an optional extra for the ministry of the Church, it is an imperative for the mission of God’s Church.”
Read this article in the Church Times here.
So why are Christians apparently in the forefront of climate lobbying? Yes, we are concerned for God’s creation, and Yes, we care about those in the frontline of climate change and the impact this will have on food production, migration, conflict and war. But most importantly our faith forces us to be honest with God and hence honest with one another. You cannot be a Christian without that honesty and that realism: we cannot bury our heads in the sand.