A fair COP? 

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good (Genesis 1:31)

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference is currently taking place in Egypt. These two-week summits are an important opportunity for world leaders, politicians and experts to discuss the climate crisis on a global level, and to agree action on how best to tackle it.
 
This year’s Conference - COP27 - comes at a time when the world is facing an economic crisis and the effects of war in Ukraine (and, indeed, in many other places across the globe). So, shouldn’t we be more concerned about addressing these immediate problems? And, as Christians, shouldn’t we be concerned about people’s spiritual welfare rather than being sidetracked by concern for the environment? These are big questions that merit more than a short blog posting, but here are a couple of thoughts.
 
It's an issue of justice - Climate change is putting millions of lives at risk, intensifying global threats like extreme weather events, rising sea levels and melting glaciers. The overwhelming scientific consensus is that this is a human-made problem, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, releasing heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide. It’s the outworking of a global system built on greed and overconsumption, and is fundamentally at odds with God’s original intention for His world.
 
Climate breakdown has a disproportionate impact on people in poverty, affecting their health, their access to food and their security. As global temperatures rise, rains become less reliable and droughts, floods and storms become more frequent and extreme. For those who are already vulnerable, this is a life-threatening emergency that is pushing them further into poverty. The devastating floods in Pakistan this summer were yet another reminder of how this plays out in practice.
 
We have a crucial role in calling for, and working towards, a world that allows everyone to flourish. Proverbs 31:9 says “Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” We are called, as Christians, to stand up for justice, urging those in positions of power to make decisions that protect the most vulnerable people and the Earth we all rely on.
 
It’s an issue of stewardship - in the Creation story in Genesis 1, when God creates mankind and blesses them, He says to them “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground … I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”
 
While God gave mankind rule, or dominion, over creation, this doesn’t mean they are free to pillage or abuse the earth’s resources. Dominion involves responsibility and accountability, and it’s a mandate to care for God’s world just as He cares for it. Among other things, this means finding ways to put back into nature at least as much as we take out of it, and to preserve natural resources. Agriculture and industry are hugely important in supplying basic human needs, but must act responsibly. Just as we are called to be wise stewards of our time, our money, our talents, so we should also be of God’s world, both through the way we live and through calling on those in positions of power to take bold and wise decisions.
 
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the scale and enormity of the environmental issues the world faces, and to put them in the Too difficult box. But there are still things we can do which, taken with the efforts of others, can make a real difference: 

• Spend money wisely - the food, energy, clothes and goods we buy can have a greater or lesser impact on the environment
• Follow the Three Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle; in other words, use less, use again, use for something else
• Campaign for change - the views of the public do have an impact on governments and businesses. Many charities, like Tear Fund, run campaigns that provide an easy way for us to express our views.

Prayer - Lord, thank you for the wonderful world you have given us. Help us to see how we can be wise stewards of it through how we live. And we pray for visionary leaders with the courage to take bold decisions that help to address the climate crisis, and the wisdom to bring them to life through practical action. Amen

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash