Lambeth - Bishops have 'no option' on climate change

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Lambeth Daily
Bishops have 'no option' on climate change
Posted On : July 26, 2008 5:05 PM | Posted By : Webmaster
Related Categories: News

The church will have to provide the necessary 
moral argument on tackling climate change, where 
the arguments of politics and economics have 
failed, the chair of the Anglican Communion 
Environment Network (ACEN) said today.

At a press conference today Bishop of the Diocese 
of Canberra Goulburn George Browning said that 
bishops have “no option” but to take up the cause 
of the environment, “Not because of what the 
world says, but because it is inherent in our faith”.

Caring for the whole of God’s environment, Bishop 
Browning said, was “theologically our core business”.

“If we are going to make significant progress 
internationally it will have to come from some 
moral persuasion – the arguments of economics and 
politics will not deliver. This is not something 
that is being heavily driven by any government in the world,” he said.

He criticised the political response that 
financial pressure on people was cited as a 
reason that they “couldn’t afford” to take steps environmentally.

“This is so short sighted,” Bishop Browning said. 
“We need to maximise the choices that are 
available now, and the price we will pay if we don’t is so much greater.”

Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of 
The Episcopal Church, also spoke at the press 
conference, saying, “We are all interconnected
 
We spoke in the Bible studies today of creation 
as the body of God. All creation reflects the 
image of God, not just human beings
 We’re 
gathered here to remind people that if we do not 
pay attention to all creation, the other things 
that concern us will be of no importance.”

Presiding Bishop Schori said that from the native 
peoples in Alaska and the Arctic Circle losing 
land to melting permafrost, to the poverty of 
Haiti worsened by climate change, to the 
increasing desertification of sub-Saharan Africa, 
“It is the poorest of this world who suffer the 
most from climate change already and will continue to suffer in the future.”

Bishop Browning’s diocese is in Australia, the 
largest greenhouse polluter per capita in the 
world, largely due to its coal-based energy 
industry. Canberra is also the home of that country’s seat of government.

“It is important that Australia makes maximum use 
of resources available to it,” he said. “I will 
use whatever voice I have to reinforce that.”

Lambeth Conference participants have been invited 
to contribute to a carbon offset scheme for their 
travel, the proceeds of which will fund projects in Burundi and Bangladesh.

Staff writer