Our diocese and Net-Zero 2030
The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPPC AR6) states that “Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe” and that “it is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land”. It adds that “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” Observed changes due to climate change include
Increases in greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), released as a result of human activities, are now known to be causing climate change. Scientists have shown that levels of these three greenhouse gases were higher in 2019 than at any time in the previous 800,000 years and that these gasses have accumulated in the atmosphere over time as we have increasingly industrialised our world and increased our demand for energy (e.g. to heat our homes and work places and places of worship), products and travel.
A matter of justiceEffects of climate change on human populations include:
Relating the increasingly intensified effects of climate change to other recent events, Bishop Graham Usher, Lead Bishop for the Environment said “The pandemic has foreshadowed the chaos and destruction that will follow should we not cease our exploitation of the environment, our greed for finite resources and the neglect of our interconnected nature on this precious planet. The Church is called to be a people of hope; to live in harmony with our world; to treasure God's creation and our brothers and sisters around the globe.” In February 2020, members of the Church of England’s General Synod set new targets to reach a point where by the amount of greenhouses gasses released in to the atmosphere as a result of church life are reduced to zero or balanced by removal out of the atmosphere (otherwise known as “net zero”) by 2030. During the Synod debate, Bishop of Salisbury, Nick Holtam said “Synod has set an ambitious target for the whole Church of England to respond to the urgency of the Climate Crisis. To reach Synod’s target of 2030 will not be easy, and requires each of us to hear this as an urgent call to action. But this is a clear statement of intent across the Church and to wider society about our determination to safeguard God’s creation. This is a social justice issue, which affects the world’s poorest soonest and most severely, and if the Church is to hold others to account, we have to get our own house in order.” |
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