Getting to Glasgow

At university I had friends at church who were very committed to environmental justice. Their passion and conviction prompted my own journey. The implications of declaring ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’, were far wider than I had previously thought, and I began to understand that the hope of redemption is a hope for all the earth. 

That journey has led me to where (and who) I am today. I work with a number of projects connecting faith with action on climate. One day a week with A Rocha UK and at the moment part of the core team within Young Christian Climate Network (YCCN), currently organising a relay between the G7 in Cornwall in June, and COP26 in Glasgow in November. We want to drive climate finance up the agenda of these meetings, where world leaders will come together to make decisions that will determine the degree of impact that climate change will bear on people and on our planet. For the UK, hosting both meetings in a year is a huge opportunity, and we must mobilise as individuals and as the UK Church to scrutinise the decisions happening on our doorstep. 

Feeling powerless is paralysing, and it’s very easy to fall into; so, too, is being overly concerned about whether an outcome is achievable or useful enough to generate impact and warrant the effort. I am learning to be less preoccupied with this. We said that we wanted YCCN to be a community which could sustain collective action, and in turn, a place where acting together would grow community. It’s a privilege to be alongside people giving their skills, and to navigate the way forward with one another. 

There’s a Bonhoeffer quote which says “Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God’s will”. I am learning that living out faith involves risk-taking, because we must always live with the tension of not knowing, and so we must act from, and in, courage and faith. Stuck in a mindset of powerlessness, we will not act. Resting in the safety of being rooted in God’s love, we can take courage and act together.

COP26 is essentially the ‘olympic games of climate change’, it’s the only internationally recognised forum for countries to come together and make decisions about responding to climate change. COP stands for Conference of the Parties, a treaty agreed in 1994. The 2021 meeting will be the 26th meeting, which is why it's called COP26.

In 2015, countries met in Paris for COP21, and decided to limit warming to 2 degrees, and pursue limiting it to 1.5 degrees. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is several hundred million people exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty by 2050 (from the October 2018 special report).

Delayed from last year, COP26 is crucial: we need to see countries make commitments which get us on track for limiting climate change – at the moment we are projected to see warming of 3 degrees this century.

This is why YCCN has been walking for the past 4 months across the UK towards this conference. We have been physically and spiritually journeying towards a conference which has significant implications for the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world.

Our call has been for leaders to ‘Rise To the Moment’. Presently, when countries suffer the effects of climate change, there is no internationally agreed mechanism for financial support. Countries are left to pay for the loss and damage themselves. If they can't pay, they take on further debt. With many of the most climate-vulnerable nations already in debt distress following the Covid pandemic, this is both unsustainable and unjust. Without wise decision-making now, we will see global inequality spiral as the impacts of climate change become increasingly frequent and severe.

Will you join us on the last part of our journey?

Pray

• For climate commitments (NDCs) which are in line with the ambition of the Paris Agreement.
• For provision of climate finance. In 2009 the wealthiest countries committed to provide $100bn finance a year to the most vulnerable countries. This is a drop in the ocean of what is needed, and a lot of current finance is in the form of loans. We need to see this money on the table at COP26 and plans for it to be scaled.

Donate

• To the Christian organisations and charities involved with campaigning and preserving our God given creation

Donate to A Rocha UK

Contact your MP

• We have guidance on our website and you can now ask your MP to sign EDM 444

Support YCCN

• Pray for the provision of accommodation we need on our last week Edinburgh to Glasgow, for opportunities at COP26 itself, and for leadership of the network going forward
• Sign up to our Relay mailing list
• Follow us on social media @YCCNetwork