A good example of the link between high income consumers and high carbon footprints, is air travel. Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions (2) yet in anyone year only 5-10% of the world’s population boards a plane. And even within that minority who do fly, most of the flights are undertaken by an even smaller percentage of frequent flyers. In the UK (a country producing the third highest level of air flight emissions after the US and China) 70% of flights are taken by just 15% of the population. (1)
Does it have to be this way?
No – there are alternatives to air travel. Rail travel has a significantly smaller carbon footprint, and for travel within Europe and potentially across other continents, is practical mode of transport. However current investment plans and tax/ subsidy policies favour air travel over rail.
Government policies could start with the premise that the number of air flights needs to be reduced (or at the least kept at current levels). Shaping policies around that would include developing alternative modes of transport for people and goods, enabling manufactures to adapt to different transport network, encouraging different models of tourism.
We cannot continue to consume more and more and still believe that both the world will continue to provide all the resources we need and that somehow those same limited resources can provide everyone else in the world with the same level of good living. If we are to address both local and global inequalities and live within the Earth’s planetary boundaries, we in the richer echelons of the economic system must consume less. This does not mean that we have to lower our living standards but rather adapt them. We can have good living standards whilst consuming less.
Every year the Global Footprint Network calculates the date by which humans will have consumed a year’s worth of the Earth’s resources. Further consumption after that date uses resources at a faster rate than by which they can be replenished – in other words for that remaining part of the year our consumption takes us beyond safe planetary boundaries.
This is a global calculation. Individual nations – and indeed individuals themselves – will be consuming at different rates. Specifically there are some nations who consume far more then others and will have consumed their share of the Earth’s resources much earlier than the global Earth overshoot day – eg Qatar, the USA, Belgium inter alia. Whilst there are other nations who consume far less and may not even consume their share of the Earth’s resources before the year’s end – eg Burundi and Bhutan.
Clearly those nations who consume over and above the global average need to reduce their consumption, but would be enough if they reduced their consumption to that average? Not really because those levels of consumption would only stay within the limits of our planetary boundaries if the poorer nations were content to continue to under consume. In reality those poorer nations should be able to benefit from the better living standards that accrue from having satisfactory levels of food, education, healthcare, sanitation, housing, transportation etc.
Consumption levels for the richer nations need to fall substantially if everyone is to have a good standard of living.
The following explanations, including reference to their current safe status or not, comes from the Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Climate change: Increased greenhouse gases and aerosols in Earth’s atmosphere trap heat that would otherwise escape into space. The climate change planetary boundary assesses the change in the ratio of incoming and outgoing energy of the Earth. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more trapped radiation causes global temperatures to rise and alters climate patterns. This boundary is transgressed, and CO2 concentrations are rising.
Novel entities: Technological developments introduce novel synthetic chemicals into the environment, mobilise materials in wholly new ways, modify the genetics of living organisms, and otherwise intervene in evolutionary processes and change the functioning of the Earth system. The amount of synthetic substances released into the environment without adequate safety testing places novel entities in the high-risk zone.
Stratospheric ozone depletion: Ozone high in the atmosphere protects life on Earth from incoming ultraviolet radiation. The thinning of the ozone layer, primarily due to human-made chemicals, allows more harmful UV radiation to reach Earth’s surface. Total ozone is slowly recovering because of the international phasing-out of ozone-depleting substances since the late 1980s. Ozone depletion is therefore currently in the Safe Operating Space.
Atmospheric aerosol loading: Changes in airborne particles from human activities and natural sources influence the climate by altering temperature and precipitation patterns. Although large-scale air pollution already causes changes to monsoon systems, forest biomes and marine ecosystems, the global metric used in the planetary boundaries framework – interhemispheric difference in atmospheric aerosol loading – places this process just within the Safe Operating Space.
Ocean acidification: The acidity of ocean water increases (its pH decreases) as it absorbs atmospheric CO2. This process harms organisms that need calcium carbonate to make their shells or skeletons, impacting marine ecosystems, and it reduces the ocean’s efficiency in acting as a carbon sink. The 2025 Planetary Health Check showed that the Ocean Acidification boundary has been breached for the first time. Since the start of the industrial era, the ocean’s surface pH has fallen by around 0.1 units, a 30-40% increase in acidity, pushing marine ecosystems beyond safe limits and degrading the oceans’ ability to act as Earth’s stabiliser.
Modification of biogeochemical flows: Nutrient elements like nitrogen and phosphorus are crucial for supporting life and maintaining ecosystems. Industrial and agricultural processes disrupt natural cycles and modify the nutrient balance for living organisms. This boundary is transgressed, because both the global phosphorus flow into the ocean and the industrial fixation of nitrogen (converting stable nitrogen from the atmosphere into bioreactive forms) have disrupted global biogeochemical flows.
Freshwater change: The alteration of freshwater cycles, including rivers and soil moisture, impacts natural functions such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity, and can lead to shifts in precipitation levels. Human-induced disturbances of both blue water (e.g. rivers and lakes) and green water (i.e. soil moisture) have exceeded the planetary boundary.
Land system change: The transformation of natural landscapes, such as through deforestation and urbanization, disrupts habitats and biodiversity and diminishes ecological functions like carbon sequestration and moisture recycling. Globally, the remaining forest areas in tropical, boreal, and temperate biomes have fallen below safe levels.
Biosphere integrity: The diversity, extent, and health of living organisms and ecosystems affects the state of the planet by co-regulating the energy balance and chemical cycles on Earth. Disrupting biodiversity threatens this co-regulation and dynamic stability. Both the loss of genetic diversity and the decline in the functional integrity of the biosphere are outside safe levels.
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?
CNN described Pope Francis as “the fiercest climate and environment advocate in the church’s history.”
His 2015 encyclical Laudato Si connected the care of the environment with social justice, and was a radical challenge not just to the church world wide but to all humanity, that now is the time to recognise that we share a common home, and that only together, by radically changing the way we live can we hope to secure a safe future for generations to come.
“The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.”
“Never have we so hurt and mistreated our common home as we have in the last 200 years.”
“We are not God. The Earth was here before us and was given to us.”
“The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology … is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth’s goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit.”
“Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start.”
Vanessa Nakate also began her journey as a prophet as a solo protestor standing with a placard outside the Ugandan Parliament in Kampala. From here she has inspired a whole youth movement, drawing support from across Africa. Addressing the delegates at the pre-COP26 Youth Summit, she highlighted some uncomfortable truths: “In the past few years, I have seen more and more of how the climate crisis is affecting the African continent. Which is ironic given that Africa is the lowest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions of all continents, except for Antarctica… Many Africans are losing their lives, while countless more are losing their livelihoods.”
In 2022 she addressed Africa’s People’s AGM on EACOP. “It is evident that there is no future in the fossil fuel industry. In regards to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, many people think this is a way of [creating] jobs and economic development. But we know the impacts on our food. We know the impacts on our water. We know the impacts on our livelihood.”
“The International Energy Agency has made it very clear that if we want to [limit global warming] to 1.5 degrees Celsius, then we cannot have any new fossil fuel development. But even at 1.2 degrees, we already seeing the effects of the climate crisis on the African continent … the latest IPCC report projects that 700 million people in Africa will be displaced because of drought.”
To be a prophet is not necessarily to be respected or applauded: people do not like hearing uncomfortable messages – especially when they are truthful.
“Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.” UN secretary general, António Guterres, April 2022
Modern day prophets include people such as Greta Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate, Antonio Guterres and Pope Francis.
Greta Thunberg began her prophetic journey began with a climate strike. Rather than spending Fridays in school, she sat alone outside the Swedish Parliament with her simple placard – “Skolstrejk for Klimatet” – calling on those in authority to take action.
With her single minded determination, she took this message, in 2019, to the World Economic Forum: “I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to behave like our house is on fire. Because it is.”
And to the United Nations climate summit: “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. … People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you?”
Her words and actions drew – and continue to draw – widespread attention to the urgency and scale of the climate crisis. In the six years since her speech about house on fire, we have clearly experienced scorching temperatures, more frequent outbreaks of wild fire, as well as the first signs that whole ecosystems – eg the coral reefs and the Amazon rainforest – are on the brink of collapse.
In November 2014, UN Secretary-General António Guterres sent young climate activists this message: “You have every right to be angry. I am angry too,” the UN chief posted on social media on Thursday following his meeting with youth representatives and young environmental activists. “I am angry because we are on the verge of the climate abyss, and I don’t see enough urgency or political will to address the emergency.”
The original meaning of prophecy was of a message about the future that was revealed to the prophet by divine inspiration and this is reflected in the root Greek word “prophēteia ” meaning the gift of interpreting the will of the gods. (1) Now – perhaps because fewer people place their faith in divine inspiration – prophecy more often means a statement or observation predicting what will happen in the future.
Prophecies don’t necessarily come with absolute certainty. For example Jonah was sent to Ninevah with a prophecy predicting that if the people did not repent of their wrong doing , they would be punished. The warning is taken on board, the people repent and Ninevah – much to Jonah’s anger – is saved. Indeed most of the prophets from the first half of the Bible, have messages that call on the people to repent lest they wish endure significant suffering and destruction – although sometimes they have messages which predict a life of peace and flourishing for those who honour God’s way.
Effective prophecy in these situations is prophecy that leads people to reshape the way they live.
There is very much a need for effective prophecy today; prophetic words – and actions – that can motivate people to turn away from lifestyles that are destroying lives and ecosystems, and instead to adopt ways of living that are caring and kind and respectful of the Earth’s planetary boundaries.
Legal restrictions on the right to protest have increased significantly in the last few years as a result of two new pieces of legislation: the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (“Policing”) Act 2022 and the Public Order Act 2023.
The Policing Act further restricts what forms of protest are permissible. Police may restrict or ban protests that cause more than ‘minor disruption’, that are noisy, that are within the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, and/ or obstruct the highway. The police are also now given powers to restrict static protests and one-person protests.
The Public Order Act gives the police even more powers to restrict protests. . It expands police powers to stop and search. It gives them powers to ban people from participating in protests and limiting who they may associate with. It also creates new criminal offences for actions that might form part of a protest such as as locking-on, tunnelling, obstructing major transport works and/ or interfering with key national infrastructure.
For a more detailed analysis of these two Acts look at Liberty’s website. (1)
In the courts there has been an erosion of the legal defences that protestors may use to justify their action. The Campaign Against Climate Change gives this summary:
In 2021, the Court of Appeal, although it overturned the convictions for the ‘Stansted 15’, upheld the original judge’s ruling that the defence of ‘necessity’ did not apply to protesters.
In 2022, the Court of Appeal decided, after intervention from the then Attorney General, Suella Braverman, that protesters accused of ‘significant’ criminal damage cannot use as a defence their right to protest under the European Convention of Human Rights.
In 2024, after intervention from another Attorney General, Victoria Prentis, the Court of Appeal said the “beliefs and motivation” of a defendant do not constitute lawful excuse for causing damage to a property
The principle of ‘Hoffmann’s bargain‘ following a case in 2006, held that motives of conscience and intention to avert a greater harm would be taken into account and lead to more lenient sentencing. From the case of the Stansted 15 onwards, this principle has been lost.” (2)
