21st October 2025
Recently Christian Climate Action produced a vision document calling on the Church to be more prophetic. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yOj-jCh9H8L_vqFJ89fbpJHPQibwPgQ0/view?usp=drivesdk
On the one hand the Church of England is pressing ahead with its challenge of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2030, which is seeing many church buildings (including schools and vicarages etc) being fitted with low energy light bulbs, insulation, solar panels and heat-pumps etc. And this is clearly very important and especially so if it also motivates people to do likewise in their own homes and places of work. (The number of regular worshippers is now just over a million).
On the other hand does the Church challenge individuals, industries and governments to address the systemic wrongs that perpetuate the climate and biodiversity crises and the social injustices that these cause?
As an analogy, I as an individual can be rigorous about placing my plastic in the recycling bin, but if most of that plastic ends up on beaches in Africa because the price of virgin plastic is cheaper than that of recycled plastic, the economic system has won.
I can try and raise this issue as an individual, but how much more effective would it be if the Church were there calling for change – using its cultural status and its position in Parliament to call for effective policies to incentivise recycling within the UK, to incentivise the use of recycled plastic and taxing the production of virgin plastic?
What if – for example- the Church of England were, say, to publicly back Greenpeace which has long been challenged the status quo vis a vis the pollution and global injustices arising from inadequate policies around plastics?
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