ON WEDNESDAY, representatives of each of our faith communities will stand together in Westminster to say with a united voice to MPs that this is the moment for leadership that protects what matters most: our health, our nature, our communities, our climate, and our future.
The Mass Climate Lobby will bring together thousands of concerned people from across the UK who have noticed the impact of climate change around them, from flooding and heatwaves, to landscape loss and degradation. The biodiversity of this country has also suffered great loss, and nature recovery is not being taken nearly seriously enough in government policies.
Around the world, we see communities facing extreme weather events, floods, droughts, and the long-term loss of productive farmland. These manifestations of climate change all fall under what is called “loss and damage”: they cannot be prevented or fixed, and communities are left to face the consequences with little or no way to recover fully.
People are made more vulnerable to the effects of climate change by living in areas that are more severely affected by the triple-threat planetary crises — climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution — or by being subject to poverty or other inequalities that make it harder to prepare for disaster or rebuild once it has happened.
It cannot be emphasised enough that the majority of those affected by climate breakdown today have done little to contribute to this crisis: they have not benefited from the extreme wealth of those who extract and burn fossil fuels, and their personal carbon emissions are often among the lowest in the world.
On average, each person in the world causes about 4.8 tonnes of carbon-dioxide pollution each year. In the UK, it is slightly higher, at five tonnes per person. In Rwanda, it is just 0.12 tonnes; so it takes 42 people in Rwanda to produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as one person in the UK.
AS CHILDREN of Abraham, each of our faiths shares a common calling to care for the earth, to walk humbly and responsibly, and to treat others with fairness and kindness.
The injustices of the climate crisis show starkly how our industrialised societies have failed to live up to these values. Each of us, inspired by our respective faiths, is compelled to speak out with a prophetic voice to change things, so that, together, we may create a more loving and fairer world.
This is why faith communities have joined together to advocate for loss-and-damage funding (News, 14 June). In 2021, COP, the international climate conference, came to Glasgow. For many, the focus at that COP was on arguments for a loss-and-damage fund that wealthier countries would pay into to support poorer countries in responding to climate disaster. This work paved the way for the fund to be established a year later at COP27 (News, 25 November 2022).
Since then, the focus has been on paying into the fund. COP29 did agree on a figure and a deadline — $US300 billion per year by 2035 — but this deadline leaves 11 years for delivery. People affected by climate breakdown need support now.
At a time when national interests increasingly take precedence, we need moral, spiritual, and ethical leadership that calls us to look beyond borders and to stand in solidarity with those most vulnerable to the impact of climate change, wherever they are, and not diminish our support for them.
COP30 will be held in November in Brazil, the gateway to the Amazon. In the UK, faith groups have written to the Treasury and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, asking them to use the levers in our tax system to ensure that those responsible for climate breakdown pay their fair share.
It is not enough simply to believe that a better world is possible. We must live out that belief in our actions, by joining together with others and speaking out where our voice can have an impact.
The international mechanisms of meetings such as COP can feel distant, but our Government has a mandate to represent us at these meetings. If we can be voices for kindness and fairness in our own country, this influences how our Government will contribute to the negotiations in November.
The Mass Climate Lobby on 9 July is an opportunity for people of faith to speak up and speak out about the climate crisis and the need for urgent loss-and-damage funding. The day will be attended by many people of faith, both as individuals and as part of faith and interfaith partnerships, who seek action now so that we can change for ever. Will you join us?
Kamran Shezad is director of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, and a co-author of the document Al Mizan: A covenant for the earth; Jonathan Wittenberg is Senior Rabbi of the New North London Synagogue and the founder of EcoJudaism; and the Rt Revd Graham Usher, Bishop of Norwich, is the lead bishop for the environment.
