As the UK sweltered under a ferocious autumn sun this week, Christians took part in 13 climate pilgrimages around the UK, from Glasgow to Brighton, to highlight public concern regarding the climate crisis, and to call on the Government to end new oil and gas expansion.
The Met Office announced that the heatwave in England and Wales this week was the first time since records began that temperatures have been higher than 30ºC for six days in a row in September.
The Revd Vanessa Elston, a pioneer priest in Southwark diocese, took part in a pilgrimage in Battersea. She said: “The public are really concerned about the climate issue. We don’t want to be paying sky-high energy bills to fossil-fuel companies in a cost-of-living crisis. Renewables are cheaper; so it’s high time our leaders made them a viable option on a large scale.”
As temperatures rose, leaders of the G20 group of nations met in Delhi, where they called for peace in Ukraine, agreed that the world needed $4 trillion to fund the energy transition away from fossil fuels, and called for accelerating efforts towards a “phasedown of unabated coal power”; they said that poorer nations needed financial support to ensure a “just transition”.
Before the summit, church leaders representing more than 600 million Christians, had called on the G20 leaders to implement progressive carbon taxes and to end subsidies for fossil fuels, which could raise $3.2 trillion for the needed energy transition.
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Christians held a prayer vigil outside World Vision this week, calling on them to stop banking with @Barclays – the largest funder of fossil fuels in Europe.
My latest piece for the @ChurchTimes on growing pressure for charities to clean up their banking.https://t.co/EtrzeomRfm
— Joe Ware (@wareisjoe) September 14, 2023