COP26: Moving Mountains?
‘The biggest diplomatic moment the government has ever hosted on UK soil.'
‘The best opportunity for UK civil society to influence the government on climate justice.'
‘The decisive decade to get on course for 1.5°C global warming.'
Glasgow - https://unsplash.com/photos/KX5voOmARSI
Two years ago, with heady pronouncements surrounding the upcoming UN climate summit, COP26, a team of us started planning Tearfund’s climate campaign: it felt like quite a responsibility! This would be a big COP: the first major review of the Paris Agreement AND held in Glasgow. Furthermore, in the early months of the Covid pandemic, we saw unprecedented action by communities and governments in response to that health crisis – raising the bar on what could be achievable to address the climate emergency.
Covid delayed COP26 by a year, but the summit is now less than a month away. So where are things up to?
For Tearfund, we have wanted to see two mountains move:
For COP26 to put the world on course for safer levels of 1.5°C of global heating
For Christians and churches in the UK and globally to wake up and rise up to address climate injustice
Virtually every country in the world will be represented at COP26. At this stage, their collective emission-reduction pledges set the world on course for a very scary 2.7°C global warming by 2100. Predictions about the difference between 1.5°C and even 2°C are devastating, and the poorest countries will be hit hardest: droughts last twice as long, 116 million more people struggle to get water, four times as many tropical cyclones, and so on.
Every fraction of a degree matters – a lot! Science has recently shown that we will probably reach 1.5°C by 2040, with temperatures continuing to rise until 2050. If the most polluting nations make immediate and large-scale reductions, it is still possible this could be a temporary overshoot.
As Christians we need to pray, rise up and be heard – calling for justice to prevail. Hope is rising as we’re starting to see signs of transformation in the UK church, like these two stories I heard just last week:
Climate Justice Now - https://unsplash.com/photos/dYZumbs8f_E
A church leader described a prayer meeting where 'people were literally weeping over climate change because of [the story from Honduras] about everything being wiped away and how scared they are of the rain'. She has since set up a COP prayer Whatsapp group
Another, previously skeptical leader is developing a whole-church response to climate change: 'Our church family have really engaged with this, from the youngest to most senior. We have appointed a member of our Creation Care Team to our church council and made Creation Care a permanent agenda item'
For me, the question is not ‘Why should Christians be interested in COP26?’, but ‘What are the barriers to Christians getting involved in climate action?’ Some people may think, ‘I can’t get involved with everything,’ or ‘I don’t know where to start’. Others may not see engaging in climate justice as a discipleship issue – overlooking that it’s the poorest and most marginalised who suffer first and worst.
However, Covid has taught us essential things in response to all of these questions. Here are some tips and practical ways to engage in climate action:
Build your own resilience eg practise daily gratitude: for the new beginning that comes each day, and also the positive climate action in churches, governments and businesses
Face up to this emergency and its impact on the poorest – wrestle with it, study what the Bible says, talk to your friends
Advocate: talk to your MP, sign petitions, join the COP26 Day of Action on 6 November
Involve your church if you can: consider hosting a COP26 Church Service on 7 November, using Tearfund’s pre-recorded service
And, above all else, don’t forget to pray for those mountains to move
Don’t just read and move on.
Information and other resources to help you and your church get involved in COP26 are available at www.tearfund.org/reboot
‘Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.’
1 John 3:18
COP26 - UN Climate Change Conference UK 2021 - in Partnership with Italy