Justin Welby and the Season of Creation

This year is a big year for our planet. Among the most important gatherings to be held is the COP26 Climate Change Conference in in November. In preparation for a series of online meetings between international faith leaders are being held. In February the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, addressed the first of these. As we join churches of all denominations around the world in celebrating the Season of Creation, I offer some excerpts of his speech.

Sometimes, God pulls the threads of circumstance together and our lives are changed forever. This year has been an extraordinary example of such a moment.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the world to look at how we have been living and operating, when so much of what was considered ‘normal’ was not possible. We have been confronted by our behaviour: by our sin; our greed; our human fragility; our exploitation of the environment and encroachment on the natural world. For many this uncertainty is new. But many more around the world have been living with uncertainty for decades as the grim, real and present consequence of climate change. To think it is a problem of the future rather than a scourge of the present is the blind perspective of the privileged. We look around and see that Mozambique has been hit again by tropical storms. In Nigeria, desertification has contributed indirectly to conflict between people competing for dwindling resources. Floods and cyclones have devastated crops in Melanesia, risking poverty and food insecurity.

But the pandemic has also revealed our capacity for change; the opportunities for repentance; the potential for hope amidst suffering.  We have learnt much about our interconnectedness, and our need for one another. It has been a revelation to many of us: we cannot go on as we have been.

Climate change is an issue in which greed, fragility, justice and interconnectedness come together. There are signs of hope and consolation. In the UK, we are preparing for COP26 in Glasgow in November and the G7 in Cornwall in June. It is good news that the United States has rejoined the Paris Accord. Many powerful people will be coming together, and on their minds must be this: how do we recover from a pandemic by imagining a world that puts the most vulnerable and the most marginalised at the centre? Where the protection of our natural assets is at the heart of our economic and financial decision-making? How can we make 2021 a year of hope?

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To live out my Christian faith is to follow Jesus. That must include standing alongside the most vulnerable and marginalised on the frontlines of the climate emergency. As faith communities, my prayer is that we might stand together, emissaries of hope and love, calling for God’s justice and peace upon this precious world. Now is the time for act.

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[1] https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-writing/speeches/archbishop-canterbury-addresses-international-faith-leaders-ahead-cop26