Good COP, Bad COP

 In case you missed church today (as I did - in Covid isolation!) here's a report from Rosemary on some of what happened before the church lunch: 

Good Cop, Bad Cop!

This Sunday we sat down with our mugs of coffee following the morning service for a quick update – to find out if anything is happening after November’s COP26.

We talked about 

Care for creation being central to our faith – the fifth mark of the 5 Marks of Mission for those in our Anglican church.

The most important thing we can do this decade is to drastically cut the use of fossil fuels – and yet the IMF says we subsidise fossil fuels £5.9trillion /year….

The C of E and Reading Borough Council, are both committed to be carbon neutral by 2030.

We are currently at 1.2 degrees warming above pre-industrial temperatures; we are aiming to stop the temperature rising above 1.5 degrees. Currently we are heading for 2.4 degrees if the COP promises are kept 

Good things from COP26

• Lots of people, lots of young people, lots of evidence of church involvement: 100,000 people marched in Glasgow and lots of others in other places around the world. There is now a lot of public concern

• Climate justice is talked about – the industrialised countries most responsible for the emissions that cause global warming are not the ones who are suffering most from the disasters caused by climate change. 

• An agreement was made to reduce deforestation & methane gas emissions

• >20 countries agreed to stop funding fossil fuel extraction overseas; 

• There is agreement to have further dialogue on creating a climate finance pot to cover loss and damage

Bad things from COP

• We are still heading for temp rises of 2.4 degrees.

• No agreements made for climate finance and none to stop fossil fuel use

• Fine words, but no action….just blah blah blah!

• Corporate courts;  trade agreements with multinationals often include a clause saying they can seek compensation from corporate courts, should the country pass laws which adversely affect their business.

• Reliance on net zero – on technologies that do not yet exist at scale, at not thinking to try to improve things by a negative carbon balance. Its not when we reach net zero but how; if we continue life as usual until 2050 we will put a lot more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – we actually need to reduce by 50% our greenhouse gas emissions every decade. 

So what to do?

1. Look at TEAR Fund’s Climate Fact sheet to help understand the issues.

2. Know about The CEE (Climate & Ecological Emergency Bill. Now supported by 121 MPs – but not by Matt Rodda (or MP) and the Reading Area Green Christians are hoping to get together a group to meet up with him. Find out more about the CEE Bill at Zero Hour Climate UK

3. Reading Borough Council pensions are in a pot called the Berkshire Pension Fund – which has £29 million invested in companies involved in fossil Fuel Extraction. We agreed to e-mail our council representatives to tell them that we want them to divest.

4. Do your own climate footprint – as advertised in the recent church newsheets; go to Carbon Calculator - Climate Hero  (https://climatehero.me)