CofE to be carbon-neutral by 2030 – but at what cost?
by Archishop Cranmer:
No-one disputes the Christian imperative to care for the environment: the stewardship of creation is a matter of generational justice and moral responsibility. In the vast web of nature and the intricate tapestry of life, all creatures have a purpose, and ours is to honour God in sharing love and singing canticles which remind us of our place in the cosmos: ‘All Creatures of our God and King / Life up your voice and with us sing…‘
Amidst all the floods and flames currently afflicting the world, attention has turned to global warming. You may demur at the phenomenon, or at least the notion of anthropological causation, but carbon dioxide is deemed to be the cause of the warming, and a ‘climate emergency‘ has been declared by the UK Government, which has pledged reach zero-carbon emissions by 2050. The financial cost to individuals through taxation and domestic modification has not really been calculated, not least because the politics of the ‘climate emergency’ deems all such costs to be insignificant compared to the existential one posed by global warming. One estimate places UK carbon-neutrality by 2050 at £1trillion. If that burden is to fall on the UK taxpayer (as it surely will), what will be the cost to the Church of England’s worshipping community of its 2030 target ?
The Church of England’s fervent contribution to carbon neutrality is to beat the Government to it. It is the General Synod which has set a target of 2030 for all of its buildings (some 16,000 churches and cathedrals, along with many more thousands of schools, vicarages, community halls, offices, palaces…), and they set this target without having any idea of what the church’s current carbon footprint is, which seems to be a little unwise (to put it politely). But Synod is a law-making body, and the law must be obeyed.
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