Climate change is an existential threat that requires action from all people of faith.  Care for the planet is an ethical responsibility and embedded in the scriptures of all faiths and religions.

Faith provides a moral compass at this critical juncture. 

It teaches us about the wonder, beauty and uniqueness of God’s world and about the interconnectedness and interdependence of all creation. It gives us a sense of moral duty to care for the world that has been entrusted to us.

Through the teachings of our faith, we can make a critical contribution to taking collective responsibility to care for the earth and its people. The most recent United Nations IPCC scientific report states that ‘recent changes in the climate are widespread, rapid, and intensifying, and unprecedented in thousands of years.’ 

It warns that ‘unless there are immediate, rapid, and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5°C will be beyond reach.’ The COP26 Glasgow Climate Conference is being held in November under UK Presidency. 

The conference will need to determine how the large reductions in climate warming greenhouse gas emissions agreed at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 will be achieved. It must also determine how those parts of the world that are being most affected by climate change, but have done least to cause it, can be helped to adapt to its effects.

One of the lessons we take from the Covid-19 pandemic is that the very health and future of humanity depend on our ability to act together, not only to respond to pandemics, but also to protect the health of Mother Earth. In 2015 faith leaders from across the world came together to press for a climate agreement that would avert the worst effects of the climate change. In Birmingham the Faith Leaders Group supported the interfaith Lambeth Declaration calling for urgent action to address climate change.

Then in 2019 the group supported Birmingham City Council’s climate emergency declaration and aspiration that Birmingham becomes ‘net zero carbon by 2030 or as soon after as a just transition permits - making sure we take communities with us, protecting employment and without impoverishing deprived communities.’

As Birmingham’s faith communities we have a powerful responsibility to take action. As people of faith, we need to work at all levels to help make the changes needed. 

At the national level we need to hold our government to account to deliver on its legally binding commitments in the UK 2008 Climate Act and on its own COP26 Goals, including mobilising the finance needed and working together. We need to work to help Birmingham achieve its Climate Emergency Declaration ambitions.

We need to support each other within our own faith communities to reduce our carbon footprints. And, above all, we need to work for a just transition to a low carbon future that listens to disadvantaged communities and families and helps provide a better future. 

We call upon all those involved in the COP26 summit to have the courage to take the necessary measures to prevent the catastrophe that humanity faces if we do not act.