Reflections from COP26

I spent two weeks in Glasgow at the beginning of November for the UN Climate Change conference, COP26. These are my final reflections on what happened.

Finding the right way to sum up what has happened at COP is tricky. Progress was made across a great many areas, and yet so many of the groups I spent time with in Glasgow were left feeling disappointed. How to reconcile these two conflicting responses?

As well as some positive announcement during the fortnight, the final text contains some real encouragements:

• Coal is mentioned for the first time in a COP agreement, and this reference remained despite last minute interventions, albeit to ‘phase down’ rather than ‘phase out’,
• There is a commitment to ending inefficient fossil fuel subsidies,
• The Santiago Network is being activated. This is a mechanism for funding for Loss and Damage, and there is a commitment made to holding a process of dialogue,
• There is an increased commitment for funding to help countries already affected by the changing climate to adapt,
• The Paris “rule book” has been agreed, meaning there is agreement about how to count carbon emissions reductions, so that pledges can be assessed and countries held to account
• And countries have agreed to come back every year with new pledges, rather than every 5 years, until pledges are enough to keep temperature rises to 1.5C.

But much more urgency is needed, and especially progress on

• The gap between the change needed and what has been agreed; the Carbon Action Tracker calculates that the commitment keeps us to 2.4 degrees, a long way from the all important 1.5 degrees.
• Keeping the promises to the poorest and those least responsible for a changing climate, because the terms of any new financing mechanisms for loss and damage are still being discussed, not yet agreed, and the pledge of $100bn annually for adaptation and mitigation has not yet been reached..

There has been disappointment that the COP was not as inclusive as it could have been and the voices of indigenous people, and other marginalised groups were not fully heard. But we cannot abandon the process, as the COP allows those most affected by climate change to directly confront the biggest emitters and speak of their experience. We saw this unfold right in the very last stages of the negotiations on Saturday afternoon, when the whole deal was threatened by some countries pushing for weaker commitments, meaning that others needed to compromise in order to ensure that some form of agreement was reached. This statement from the Maldives is one such example:

“We are putting our homes on the line while other [nations] decide how quickly they want to act. The Maldives implores you to deliver the resources we need to address the crisis in small islands in time.” “This is a matter of survival.”

I left Glasgow most inspired by the role of civil society in pressing for change and making change. And in particular, how people of all faiths were able to come together with a unity of purpose, despite many differences, to speak and act together on this issue. We can build on the legacy of COP, which has increased concern about climate justice in our churches and communities. We can continue to speak out and hold our leaders to account. And be encouraged in our own efforts to cut our carbon emissions, and look after creation, that these actions are all part of wider movement for change.

It was a privilege to have been at COP26 with my colleagues in the Church of England. I hope you feel that you have a stake in what was going on, and that the work you do is not in isolation, but joined up with all the other activists, environmentalists, technological experts, observers, delegates and negotiators who were there.

Kingfisher and Covid

An attitude of gratitude! Picking out the highlights from the last year, however awful it was. These things are always around at this time of year. So I thought I should give it a go myself. But I found that thinking of things to be grateful for in spite of the impact of Covid wasn’t very helpful. It didn’t make up in any way for the things that had been lost during lockdown and other Covid restrictions. I needed to find things to be grateful for because of lockdown. Something additional that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

So one thing I’m grateful for is the time I’ve had to notice and appreciate the natural world around me. With nowhere else to go but outside I’ve spent more time there. The permission for daily exercise in the first lockdown inspired a regular routine of walks. And with restrictions on travel, I’ve covered the same ground so many times that small changes have become more noticeable.

I took my walk early this morning and reaped my reward when I saw a kingfisher dart across the little lake in the park. I knew that a kingfisher visits the local park but I’d only caught a glimpse of it once. Today it stayed still long enough for me to take a photo. From a bit far away, so it’s rather blurry now I’ve zoomed in! But what a treat to watch this beautiful bird sit and then the bright flash of blue as it flew back across the water. There’s often a heron in the park to, which I also saw this morning. Cue another blurry photo!

I think this experience of being closer to nature has been felt my many, especially during the blossom season in the glorious Spring weather we had. Though I’m aware that living close to green space is a gift that has made it possible to have this experience. Spending time in nature is good for our physical and mental health. And on top of that, spending time in nature is a significant route in for people to care about the environment and bigger issues like climate change. So from a work perspective, that’s another thing I can be grateful for!

It’s snowing!

I always get a little giddy when it snows. There’s usually a flurry of text messages stating the obvious with snowflake emojis, and I’m restless until I can go out in it. The rest of the family rolls their eyes, but they’ll come out with me anyway.

So you can imagine I was very sad to read new Met Office data analysis published last month suggesting that snowy winters and sub zero temperatures in the UK could become a thing of the past.

Snow days and sledging look set to become another casualty of rising global temperatures. This increase causes different kinds of climate change in different parts of the world. And in the UK it looks like warmer, wetter winters, hotter, drier summers, and more intense periods of rainfall leading to flooding.

In the grand scheme of things, no more snowy days is clearly not the most devastating impact of climate change. In other parts of the world climate change is already much more extreme – climate chaos or climate breakdown describe it better. Droughts, floods and storms destroy lives and livelihoods with increasing frequency. And the poorest people in the poorest countries are suffering the most.

But I’ll still be sad to see snow disappear from my winter – unless I go searching for it up on the high ground. If you feel the same, make sure you make the most of it while it’s snowing now. And then make sure that action to tackle climate change matters just as much as making the most of the snow.

Statuesque

Among many things that we’ve talking about over the last few days, one of them is statues. Which reminded me of an irritation that I’d forgotten since I stopped working in Leeds. As I walked out of Leeds station, I would often cross City Square. Here, four famous men are commemorated with a statue, plus Prince Edward, the Black Prince, is depicted on a horse in a fifth statue. Where are the women? Well, they don’t have names, or even barely clothes. Eight bare-breasted nymphs form a ring of lamp bearers around the square.

But this weekend has challenged my white privilege, and I’d never thought about race in this context. The men are, of course, all white. And if there are so few statues of women, where are the statues of black women?

Now I can’t claim to have done an exhaustive search in the ten minutes I’ve just spent faffing around on the internet. But it seems that, in the UK, there is one statue of a black woman. She doesn’t have a name, but she does represent a community rather than being a fictional or mythical creature.

David Sim from London, United Kingdom / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

The Bronze Woman was erected in October 2008 in Stockwell Memorial Garden. She stands as an ode to Motherhood and a symbol of the contribution of Caribbean women to society. You can read more about the background to the statue on this blog.

Overall, men are vastly more represented in public statues than women. And a significant number of those statues of women are Queen Victoria. But that is being challenged by this group, seeking to have many more women on plinths in the UK. I think I might sign up. And I think I might share a few more pictures of women statues in the next few days!

Lockdown and the Climate Crisis

What follows are a few thoughts I put together to present at a mini online festival curated by a good friend this weekend. I would never have dreamed of nor wished for the circumstances which have led us to be holding online mini festivals, but it was great to be involved.

The virus is wreaking havoc, and the lockdown to try to control it is causing damage of its own, to physical and mental wellbeing as well as to the economy. But this is where we find ourselves, and even in the midst of a bad situation, there are good things to be found.

This tree stands at the entrance to Endcliffe park – in its Autumn glory here

When my going out was curtailed to once a day, I felt obliged to go out once a day and make the most of it. When that daily walk could only start from home and therefore covered the same ground, I noticed the changes. I think the unfurling of spring has been noticed by many more people this year. There’s a willow tree at the entrance to my local park – Endcliffe Park. It is a massive, majestic tree with a great crown of drooping branches. I love it. But I didn’t realise I had never noticed before how it comes alive in spring, from the bottom up. The green buds appear first at the tips of the branches, and because of the way it is pruned straight across under the crown so the branches don’t reach down to the ground, it starts with a little tinge at the bottom, and the green hues gradually creep further up the tree until now it is fully covered and fully green.

I expect others will tell you about the blossom they noticed, the birdsong they’ve heard for the first time. When our access to it was limited, we realised how much we need and appreciate the natural world.

The enforced retreat into our homes has also massively reduced the numbers of cars and vans on our roads, and sharply cut the demand for power in our workplaces, even accounting for the small increases in demand at home. We may have had the chance to enjoy reclaiming the streets for walking and cycling. Many, many people around the world have appreciated the unexpected bonus of falling air pollution, clearing the hazy smog in Beijing and Delhi, allowing us to breath freely. And forecasters predict that we will see a fall in carbon emissions of 8% this year.

We do not want to go back to crowded streets and polluted skies. We want to see continuing gains from falling carbon emissions – we do not want to see emissions shooting back up again when the lockdown ends, which is what happened the last time emissions dropped dramatically in the financial crash of 2008 and then rose even higher once we started to recover financially.

And yet an 8% fall in emissions still means that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is rising. Think of it like filling a bath. We’re putting 8% less water in, but the water level is still rising. To reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to a level that means we avoid catastrophic temperature rises of above 1.5^oC we need to see an 8% fall in emissions every year.

What has it cost us to see what suddenly feels like a very small success? Wholesale closure of retail and hospitality businesses. Everyone who possibly can is now working from home. Virtually no flights, no holidays, no days out. No school, no exams, no sport, no arts, no church (or at least not in the building). Enormous sacrifices, and just for 8%! How on earth do we achieve even more cuts next year?

There are hopeful signs. The biggest one I think is that we’ve seen what we can achieve when we put our minds to it – when we have the leadership from the top and we all believe it is the right thing to do. In those circumstances we were all willing to make the radical changes to our lifestyle to make a difference. We did it to protect ourselves and our loved ones. When we knew what was at stake and it was clear what needed to be done, we did it. And we can do it again, because we need to do it to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

And we saw that the changes we made were not all bad. So many jobs can be done from home, avoiding long commutes, expensive flights and the need to cram all the washing into your weekend. Ah – working from home = being able to put a wash on on a Tuesday!

Clean air is making a huge difference. So far, evidence suggests that the lockdown has led to 11,000 fewer deaths in Europe. The clean air is not just a bonus for people. The reduction of air pollution means that solar panels work more efficiently. What an unexpected virtuous circle that turns out to be! Renewable energy has come into its own in the lockdown, while demand is lower. In the UK we’ve run without coal for weeks. I prepared this on Friday afternoon [May 15] and the energy mix then was 24% gas 22% solar 18% nuclear 14% wind 9% biomass – no coal at all and less than a quarter gas. The renewable industry has weathered the storm and looks set to continue strongly in our recovery phase. (You can check out grid carbon intensity here.

And so our thoughts turn to the recovery phase, how to make some of those gains stick, and how to make more cuts to our greenhouse gases. We do not want to stay socially distant forever. Whilst many things can be achieved via Social Media, Zoom, Teams, Skype, Google Hangouts, Houseparty etc etc, there’s nothing like being face to face for our social interactions. We can still do lots of work from home and walk or cycle more, but sometimes we will want and need to travel further, and for a while public transport will not feel safe. I’m very anxious that this return to our cars is for as short a time as possible. But the at least in this regard, there is support from government to help local councils build the infrastructure needed to make streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

The lockdown has exposed some of our weaknesses. Our supply chains could not cope because they are long and centralised, and one weak link had far-reaching repercussions. Shorter, more distributed supply chains working with local businesses will make us more resilient. And more interesting!

We had not appreciated those we now call keyworkers. We are certainly not paying them enough. Those on whom we depend for life to go on should all be paid at least a real living wage – is this the moment when the time has come for a Universal Basic Income?

Many industries will be looking for a cash injection, and many people will be looking for work. Our government can make decisions now which will lock us into rising carbon emissions for years to come, or can choose a green recovery which cuts carbon. Research suggests that a green recovery would not just be better for the environment, but also for the economy.We can choose now to invest in renewable energy and stop investing in fossil fuels. We can invest in better broadband connections for the whole country instead of building more roads. We don’t need to bail out the aviation industry, but we do need to help those who will lose their jobs to find new ones in low-carbon businesses. We need to insulate houses, especially social housing, a big job, a project that will keep many people in employment for a long time to come.

I do think we are at a turning point. This is an opportunity to lock-in some environmental gains when we are all finally unlocked. But it is not a given. We also have the potential to miss this opportunity, as we did post 2008. I realise I have talked a lot about ‘big stuff’ and less about what we might do ourselves. Some of that is inevitable as it is at that level that decisions get made. But we do have a part to play in the individual choices we will make going forward after the lockdown. And also in the conversations that play out in society and bubble up in social media and become part of the mood of the country which influences the space in which Government will act and make decisions. We can have these conversations in our on and offline spaces, at home, at church, and we could start now. Tearfund have done some work to try to get this conversation going, and after this you could go and have a look at what they are calling The World Rebooted

I finished my talk with four questions which the Bishop of Leeds posed in his blog earlier this week:

(a) what have I/we lost that we need to regain in the weeks and months ahead?
(b) what have we lost that needs to remain lost – left behind in another country?
(c) what have I/we gained that we need to retain in the future?
(d) what have we gained recently that was useful for this season but needs to be lost if we are to move forward?

 

Incarnation and Climate Change

Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

I’m feeling rather disillusioned with politics after these ridiculous shenanigans this week in Parliament. Actually, that’s not really true. I’ve been feeling disillusioned with politics since the referendum on membership of the EU and the unravelling of almost every aspect of politics since then.

This is hard to take, because so much of my energy, in work and out of it, is taken up with trying to effect political change to make the world a better place. In particular, trying to get policy changes to tackle climate change. I believe politicians can make a difference by promoting renewable energy, investing in green technology and removing subsidies from fossil fuels. But all we’ve talked about for 2½ years is Brexit – apart from the occasional decisions like the one this week not to continue with export tariffs for surplus energy produced by domestic solar panels.

So, if politics can’t help us, maybe the inexorable march of human progress will do it. The business case for coal already doesn’t stack up. As renewable energy technology improves and gets cheaper, coal is a dirty, expensive alternative that fewer and fewer people are choosing. However appalled you might be that Justin Trudeau is planning to bail out tar sands companies, the fact that they need bailing out is what is interesting. Perhaps market forces will be what rescues us from a 3 degree world.

Well, I think they will help, but I don’t think they’ll get us there soon enough to avoid the worst impact of global temperature rises.

So, if neither politics, progress nor capitalism are enough to save us, what is? Which got me thinking about Christmas. What is the Christmas story if not the ultimate demonstration that on its own, humanity cannot save itself from the brink? Even with all the resources of our beautiful world available to us, and the depths of human wisdom and knowledge, it is not enough to bring peace between people, never mind peace with God. The inexorable march of human progress, on its own, is not enough. Maybe even makes things worse. But a baby born in an occupied territory came as a sign of peace and hope, demonstrating not only that we can’t do it all on our own, but also that we don’t have to. God is there, God has reached out to us, offered himself to us, and walks with us on our journey.

I think there are many conclusions that can be drawn from this, but here’s the one I want to make. Human politics, human progress, human power, human processes are not enough to make the enormous difference we need to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees and to stop catastrophic climate breakdown. Therefore, the church needs to be, has to be involved in tackling climate change, bringing the transformative power of God, because we humans can’t do it on our own.

And if the church doesn’t step up and take its share of responsibility? Well, then God will leave us behind and work without us. The God who cares enough about his creation to send his son to save it is at work reconciling all things to himself. But what a sad reflection on the church – to be the people on the outside of God’s work of redemption.

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, a sign of hope and peace. As God made flesh, the incarnation shows up God’s full commitment to the earth and the humans who live here, while at the same time showing up the limits of our human nature and our dependence on God. So let us, as a church, be fully dependent on God, and be fully committed to the restoration of the earth and take our place, front and centre, in the movement to stop climate change.

The heat is on: why we need to talk about climate change

I don’t know which side of the climate change debate you find yourselves on, but I need to tell you that I’m not having that debate anymore. Even the BBC has realised that the question is no longer whether the world is getting hotter or if that’s just part of the normal cycle. Rather, the question is – how hot is the world going to get before we do something about it or descend into anarchy.

The world is hotter now than it has ever been. Remember back to June and the heatwave we all enjoyed? And how we compared it to 1976 which we remembered from our younger days? Well, the firs image shows is how unusually hot the world was in 1976. And the second how unusually hot it was in June 2018. There’s really no comparison.

17 of the world’s hottest 18 years have happened this millennium. That is every year bar one since 2000. And the one remaining hottest year was 1998. The heat is on, and there’s no doubt that it has been caused by human activity – mainly burning coal, gas and oil which pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and warming everything up.

What’s the big deal, some might say. All that lovely warm weather! Why wouldn’t we want more of it? And more of it we are going to get – heatwaves like the one we had this year are predicted to become more frequent and more intense as the global temperature rises. But heatwaves do have their downsides – this summer we saw the peat burning outside Manchester and wildfires in Greece, Portugal, Sweden, California, Australia, to name but a few.

Global warming is not all about heatwaves, though. The rising temperatures are changing the climate in many different ways. The oceans are warming and the ice caps are melting, and so the sea levels are rising. This puts many of our big cities at risk in the future – including London and New York. We’re gonna need that Thames Barrier. But it also puts many smaller, poorer places at risk. Island nations in the Pacific are at risk of being either totally submerged or rendered uninhabitable by sea water poisoning.

Archbishop Winston Halapua, Archbishop of Polynesia, puts it like this.

“For some of us from the Pacific Island States, the truth is as plain as writing on a wall, our land and livelihood are drowning while others refuse to see. How can we say to our grandchildren, the home you were to inherit and were told about is destroyed? Where is justice for them and for others?”

Warmer seas are leading to fiercer and more frequent hurricanes. Warmer water causes the hurricanes to be stronger and warm air holds more water, so the storms when they hit have stronger winds and more rain. The strongest hurricane to make landfall (Typhoon Haiyan) hit the Philippines in 2014. One almost as strong hit the Philippines just a few weeks ago. The devastation is enormous, and the recovery for a poor country like the Philippines is long and slow. Haiti, another extremely poor country, is still reeling from the impact of Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

The hotter global temperatures are also disrupting global weather patterns. Rainfall patterns, that have been predictable for years, are becoming erratic. Some places are becoming wetter, and at times weeks’ or months’ worth of rain are falling in a few hours. Did you see the images of the rainfall that swept through Majorca on Tuesday. And in Kerala, in South India, the monsoon rains in August this year brought an unprecedented amount of water in just a few days. Homes and vehicles were swept away and the extent of the flooding goes on for miles.

But in other places, unpredictable rainfall means the rains don’t come when they should, or even at all. In places like Ethiopia, when the rains fail, the crops fail. When the rains fail in successive seasons, this means drought and starvation. Cattle die and income dries up. Food prices go through the roof and people cannot survive.

I’m not here to debate with you whether climate change is real or not, whether it’s caused by humans or not, or whether the things that scientists predict will happen or not. Climate change is real. It is driven by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere put there by our modern industrial lifestyles. And its effects are being felt already, right now, by the poorest communities on our planet. Climate change already has a grip in places where life was already a precarious dance with the weather. Its impact is being felt by those already living on the edge. By those who have contributed the least to make it happen. By those who have the least resources to protect themselves from it and to adapt to its consequences.

Here in the rich, industrialised north, we have filled the skies with poison, and we are just beginning to be aware that our actions may be coming home to roost. For years, our sisters and brothers around the world have been losing their livelihoods to a monster they did not create. That’s why, at Christian Aid, we talk about climate justice, and why campaigning for action to tackle climate change has been part of our work for over a decade. People cannot develop and grow new businesses to build their own route out of poverty if the rains keep on sweeping it away. Entire communities are forced to leave their homes and because their land can no longer sustain them.

God’s creation is full of wonder and beauty. The Bible tells us that the world reveals God’s glory, and that we have a responsibility to nurture and care for it and all the creatures who live in it. This has to include action to tackle climate change. But that’s not the most compelling call for me. I believe God calls his church to be leaders in the movement to stop catastrophic warming. And I hear that call the loudest from the Old Testament prophets, who demand that God’s people act to ensure that the poor receive justice. Amos condemns those who oppress the innocent and deprive the poor of justice. They cannot come before God, because what he requires is this:

‘Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!’ Amos 5:24

We serve a God of justice. We are called to love all God’s children. We show neither love nor justice when we allow their homes and livelihoods to be washed away, or to be poisoned by salt water or pollution, or to become dried up and parched. We cannot stand by and let the poorest suffer the consequences of the actions and lifestyle of the rich.

And until this week, that’s where I would have stopped, and moved onto some of the actions I think we as individuals and we as church should take. And I would’ve hoped my appeal to justice would’ve moved you or convinced you, and that you would take up my ideas once you got home. I would’ve motivated you with encouragement about the Paris Climate agreement, where 192 countries made an agreement to take steps to cut their carbon emissions so that the global temperature wouldn’t rise more 2^oC above the temperature from before we started burning fossil fuel – what we call pre-industrial levels. And we could’ve celebrated that unprecedented act of global unity and gone home with a spring in our step.

But on Monday, the IPCC (Inter-governmental panel on climate change) published a new report. This report looks at what it thinks the planet will be like if we do get to 2 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels, and it doesn’t look good. In Paris, countries made a commitment not to exceed 2 degrees, and made some encouraging noises about trying to stick to 1.5 degrees of warming. And for the first time, this report looks at the difference in outcome between those two possibilities.

The impact on the planet is stark. If warming is kept to 1.5^oC, coral reefs will still decline by 70-90% but if at 2 degrees virtually all of the world’s reefs would be lost. Similarly, Arctic sea ice would remain during most summers if warming is kept to 1.5C. But at 2C, ice free summers are 10 times more likely, leading to greater habitat losses for polar bears, whales, seals and sea birds.

The impact on people is also dramatic. Extreme heatwaves will become more common. They will be experience at least once every five years by 14% of the world’s population at 1.5^oC but by more than a third of the planet if temperatures rise to 2^oC. Water shortages and drought will affect twice as many people round the world at 2^oC as would be affected at 1.5^oC. Food scarcity will also increase and at 2^oC hundreds of millions more people, particularly in poor countries, would be at risk of climate-related poverty. Sea-level rise would affect 10 million more people by 2100 with that half-degree extra warming.

The IPCC calculates that we have until 2030 to make the necessary changes to ensure that the temperature doesn’t rise more than 1.5^oC compared to pre-industrial levels. That’s just twelve years. But despite the talk about sticking below a 2^oC, the current pledges that countries have made mean we are actually on course for a rise of 3^oC. Given the dangerous situation predicted at 2 degrees of warming, 3 would be disastrous. We must act. We must act urgently. We’ve got 12 years.

So it’s a good job that the IPCC report also goes on to outline ways in which it believes it is possible for the world to keep warming to 1.5^oC. These include dramatic reductions in carbon emissions by switching to renewable energy, in particular electrical transport systems, large scale re-forestation, and increases in carbon capture technology. These are all massive things, things that come under the category of bigger than self actions.

So, what can we do?

Let’s start with the individual actions that we can take and then think about what it means to act at a bigger than self level. There is plenty you can do to reduce your own carbon footprint. You can switch to a renewable energy provider. It’s easy and quick and you can do it without leaving the house. And it might even save you money. If you can, you can add solar panels to your house – but if you’re going to do this, do it soon, because incentives from the government will stop come April next year. Energy efficiency is also important. What can you do to insulate your home so you don’t need the heating on for as long? How about loft insulation and draft proofing doors and windows?

Think about transport. Walk or cycle whenever you can. Choose public transport over your car as much as you can. And if you have a car, when you need to change it, choose an electric vehicle. And most significantly of all, don’t fly.

Think about consumption. Agriculture contributes a high proportion of greenhouse gases, but not all agriculture is created equal. Producing meat takes up much more energy than plants, and red meat, especially beef, takes up more than pork and chicken. Dairy products are energy intensive too. The biggest impact you can have is to go vegan, but any reduction in meat and dairy consumption helps. And it’s not just what we eat. Everything we buy and use takes energy to make and transport. So buy less, throw away less – mend it, repurpose it and if you can’t do that, recycle it rather than throw it away.

Individually, these are small actions. If we all take them, then they add up to slightly bigger actions. But realistically, it’s still not enough. On their own, they don’t cut it. We are not going to tackle climate change by going vegan and switching to a renewable energy supplier. We need bigger, structural, political change. Not just a few people switching, but whole scale investment in renewable energy and away from fossil fuel. How do you get investment in anything? It has to look like it’s something worth investing in. Every person who switches to renewable energy makes the market bigger. So to make the market bigger, you can spread the word to your family and friends and get them to switch. Every time I introduce someone to my renewable energy company, I get £50! Tell everyone in your church. In fact, tell your church! Get your church to change its energy supplier.

I can tell you that this really works. I’ve been involved in a scheme to get churches to switch to a renewable energy supplier in Sheffield and Leeds Dioceses. When one of the current suppliers got wind that another company was taking their energy business, they were not happy! But they couldn’t compete if parishes wanted renewable energy. So what did they do? They went green too! So now, whichever company churches use, they get renewable electricity.

As this story shows, when it comes to business, money talks. If we want to move away from fossil fuels and develop better renewable solutions, we have to move the money. And not just the money we spend, but the money we invest. Like pension money, or the money the banks invest. That’s why Christian Aid is asking supporters to challenge the banks about where they are investing money – asking them to stop funding fossil fuels and to start investing in new, clean energy. At the moment we’re targeting HSBC because they are listening, and where they go, other banks will follow. You can add your voice to this challenge via our online campaign. But wherever you have investments or pensions, you can ask the challenging questions about what the banks are doing with your hard earned cash. Or your church’s cash – does your home church have any investments? Or what about the bigger networks and denomination that your church belongs to. Where is their money invested? Have you asked the question?

The other lever we can move when we act together is political. Politicians need votes, so the obvious thing to say is use yours wisely. Politicians act if they think it will get them votes – and so our corporate actions are important for creating the political space for politicians to act. Joining in online actions, or marches and protests generates the political legitimacy for that viewpoint. If there are no voices in favour of on-shore wind-farms, there will be no more on-shore wind-farms. It works on a one to one basis too. Have you ever met your MP? Get to know them and consistently bring your concerns to their attention. If you need somewhere to start, Christian Aid has another online action you can take. We need new legislation for action to tackle climate change. At Christian Aid, we’d like it to be ambitious enough for the 1.5 degrees scenario. That means our carbon emissions need to be zero – or at least add up to zero when you take into account things that remove carbon like planting trees – so we’re asking for a net zero carbon target. Can you ask your MP to support this target in the new bill? And then, when you’ve emailed, go and visit them.

Join in with what’s going on – local groups or national groups, online or offline, environmental groups like A’Rocha or campaigning groups like 350.org or Greenpeace, or sign up to find out what development agencies like Christian Aid or Tearfund are doing – both of these regularly campaign on climate justice. Or even join a political party and lobby from the inside. And lobby the leaders of your church too. Is your minister speaking out about climate change? What about the senior national leaders of your church? What are the internal processes you can use to bring climate justice onto the agenda? Wherever we can come together, we need to do this in order to make the political space for politicians and big businesses to act.

Friends, this is urgent. We’ve got 12 years to make an impact, to act for justice for all God’s children at the sharp end of climate change, to encourage our churches to be leaders in the movement for climate justice. We can all take the first step, but what we really need is to act together. I’m going to finish with some words from one of the authors of the IPCC report:

“We have presented governments with pretty hard choices. We have pointed out the enormous benefits of keeping to 1.5C, and also the unprecedented shift in energy systems and transport that would be needed to achieve that. We show it can be done within laws of physics and chemistry. Then the final tick box is political will. We cannot answer that. Only our audience can – and that is the governments that receive it.”

Our job now is to come together to create the environment for that political will to flourish.

Gender pay gap: still too wide

It’s the centenary anniversary this year for women getting the vote. One hundred years later, surely the journey to equality between men and women is here?

So let’s see! Organisations employing more than 250 workers have until April to publish mean hourly rates of pay for men and women. This week, we found out that over 500 firms have already done so. How are we doing?

Well, the answer is, not so great. The headlines are that women are, on average, paid 52% less than men at EasyJet, 15% less at Ladbrokes, and 33% less at Virgin Money. The gender pay gap is alive and well.

Now, whenever I see posts on social media about the gender pay gap, they are usually followed by a barrage of comments complaining that the post misunderstands the data, and that the equal pay act means that men and women receive equal pay for equal work. In fact, the comments from some of those businesses highlighted above reveal the same. Virgin Money said they were ‘confident’ men and women were paid equally for the same jobs. The discrepancies arise because men are, on average, in higher paid roles than women.

I want to tackle these two distinct areas. Are men and women paid equally for the same and similar jobs? And if they are, does the gender pay gap matter?

Are men and women paid equally? It appears not. I don’t think anyone these days can get away with paying men and women differently if they are doing exactly the same job. But the trouble starts with jobs that are similar but not exactly the same. Twenty years ago, my own profession (speech and language therapy) won its claim that it was of equal worth to male dominated professions like clinical psychology and pharmacy. Meanwhile, only last year, women working in Asda won their claim that their work on the shopfloor was of equal value to work done in the warehouse, where the predominantly male workforce was paid more. This could cost Asda up to £100m.

But even if women are paid equally for equal work, the gender pay gap still matters. Ladbrokes put their pay discrepancy down to ‘weak representation of women at our senior levels’. But as Jeremy Miles AM of Welsh Labour points out, this isn’t the explanation, it’s the problem. Men at EasyJet earn so much more money because 94% of its pilots are men. So why aren’t there more female pilots?

We may just be mopping up the last vestiges of unequal pay. But we have a long way to go before men and women are represented fairly in the workforce. Women fill more roles in retail work, care work and part-time work, all of which are usually paid less. And men still fill more senior roles in too many organisations. I’m not sure how we’re going to get there, but I figured a crucial step on the journey is to realise we haven’t yet arrived.

Who wants to be an Eco Church?

Who cares about the environment?

Do you? Are you worried about air pollution in our cities causing premature deaths among children and the elderly? Are you concerned about the rising tide of plastics filling the seas? Concerned enough to get your own reusable drink containers? Have you watched in horror as tropical storms have devastated the Caribbean while floods have driven millions from their homes in Asia and drought has brought further millions to the brink of starvation in East Africa?

Something needs to be done! But whose responsibility is it? Is it the job of environmentalists and ecologists? Will governments act? Or businesses? Or is it down to individuals? What about the church? Do Christians and the church have a duty to act, or is the environment beyond the responsibility of an organisation whose primary purpose is the glory of God and the care of souls?

The exhortation to look after God’s creation has been with us since the beginning of humanity. The way the heavens and the earth display the glory of God is woven throughout the Bible. Our responsibility to ensure we manage our resources so there is enough for everyone is shouted in the voices of the prophets. And the Biblical principles of Sabbath and Jubilee demonstrate how we should live in harmony with the earth and its seasons, not exploiting it for every last grain or drop.

When we care for our world, we care for its people too. Or, conversely, if we want to serve our communities, we must also be concerned about the environment in which they live. And that includes our sisters and brothers in the poorest communities in the world, bearing the brunt of the dramatically changing climate caused by the carbon emissions of the rich.

So, now that I’ve convinced you that action to tackle climate change and take care of the planet is part of the church’s mission to love God and all his people, what are we going to do about it?

I spent last Saturday at A’Rocha’s Northern Eco Church conference, with a bunch of other people with a desire to green the church. A’Rocha is a Christian conservation charity at heart, and out of this passion it has devised a toolkit to help churches do what they can to become more involved with care for the environment. The Eco Church scheme provides a structure to help churches act and the award recognises and celebrates what has been achieved.

The award covers five areas. Worship and Teaching encourages churches to include climate and environmental themes in its songs, prayers and sermons across all ages and groups. Management of buildings covers issues of heating, lighting, renewable energy, insulation and energy efficiency. Management of land considers how churchyards are managed for the benefit of wildlife and the people in the surrounding area. Churchyards are now the last remaining homes of some of our most endangered indigenous species. Global and community engagement gets churches involved with wider environmental issues on a national and global scale and encourages them to engage with the holders of power who can make a difference. And the final section, lifestyle, challenges us all to consider our own carbon footprint, what we eat, how we travel, what we buy, so that the whole congregation can act to transform our world.

Holy Trinity Thorpe Hesley

In the Sheffield area, 6 churches are registered to become eco churches. Christ Church Stocksbridge and St Leonard’s Dinnington are on their way. Bannercross Methodists and Dronfield Baptists have a bronze award, and Holy Trinity Thorpe Hesley and Saint Andrew’s Psalter Lane are silver award holders. On Saturday I met people from St Luke’s Lodge Moor, St Thomas Crookes, St Thomas Philadelphia, Crowded House church and the Cathedral. Along with my church (All Saints Ecclesall) I wonder which one will be next. Perhaps it will be yours?

 

 

Back to School: maths, gender and clothes

My daughter started her A-levels this week. She’s doing Maths, Further Maths, Physics, and a design/engineering course about the built environment. Or, as my son puts it, maths, super maths, science maths and engineering maths. I’ve had lots of reactions to that, and I’m interested in yours. So I’ll leave a little gap here while you react without reading ahead to what others have said…

 

There’s the usual “oh I did Maths and Physics A-level” or its opposite, a sense of awe that anyone could do Maths or Physics. But the most interesting one is something like “Good for her!” which roughly translates as “it’s really great that a girl is taking those subjects”. I can’t knock this reaction because it’s true. It is great. The maths class is reasonable evenly split between boys and girls, but there’s hardly any girls in physics and even fewer in further maths. It’s also partly why she chose physics – because fewer girls do it and she wanted to break the mould. But it’s still remarkable that in 2017 it is worthy of comment that girls are opting for maths and science courses at A-level. There really is still a lot for feminism to do.

When she was born, I cast disdain on pink clothes. I must have expressed this rather more fiercely than anticipated (there is precedent for this), because my mother-in-law stuck to it doggedly. So we ended up with a wonderful sunny array of bright yellows and oranges, with just the odd bit of beige thrown in. Sixteen years later, this issue has not gone away. There has been recent mounting pressure on retailers who separate toys by gender, with a girls’ aisle festooned in pink and sparkles while boys get primary colours and trucks. Even Lego for girls is pink. This extends to clothes, and even more worryingly, to sexualised slogans and styles for little girls. But this week (hurrah!) John Lewis has announced that it will no longer divide its store into ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ sections. Rather, it will have one section for children’s clothes, as body shapes between girls and boys are no different until puberty. It is also launching a new ‘gender-neutral’ range of children’s clothes.

The reaction to this news has been astonishing! While lots of people are supportive, others are threatening to boycott John Lewis for (wait for it!) political correctness gone mad. This article from the Christian Institute is the one that drove me to my keyboard for this blog. No-one is making boys wear dresses, though they can if they want. But it is about making sure girls have the freedom of choice to wear clothes featuring dinosaurs, cars, space aliens and football without having to shop in the boys’ section.

Does this all really matter? Here’s what Let Clothes be Clothes had to say. ‘When we looked at tops sold in Mothercare, there were over 20 STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths) themes sold as “boys t-shirts” and not one for girls. The idea that boys and not girls will be more inclined towards Science themes is harmful to girls AND boys, and is insulting to all the Women who have forged a path in STEM fields.’

And here’s a cautionary tale about why we need women in engineering. When airbags were first designed and fitted to cars, they had only been tested on man-sized crash test dummies. Consequently, when they were deployed, women and children were at risk of injury from the airbag. This didn’t change until 2011, so watch out if your car is older than that!

The gender gap is still wide open (along with many other gaps). I’m sure you haven’t forgotten the massive pay gap between the highest paid men and women at the BBC. For the rest of us, the gap in earnings between men and women means that once we get to Friday 10^th November (equal pay day) women will effectively be working for free. This is the same as last year, so we’ve made no progress in a year. I’m proud of my daughter for her ambition to break gender constraints and stereotypes. We need her ambition, because we’ve still got a long way to go.