The Very Rev Dr John Chalmers reflects on the importance of next month’s climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow.

“Securing a brighter future for our children and future generations requires countries to take urgent action at home and abroad to turn the tide on climate change. It is with ambition, courage and collaboration as we approach the crucial COP26 summit in the UK that we can seize this moment together, so we can recover cleaner, rebuild greener and restore our planet.”

THESE words are the frontispiece of the booklet which sets out the aim and purpose of COP26 which will meet in Glasgow from October 31 – November 12.

Under these words is the signature of the Prime Minister and it is to be hoped that he and other world leaders are serious about the climate crisis and not simply mouthing platitudes.

Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, every country on earth is treaty-bound to “avoid dangerous climate change”.

COP stands for the Conference of the Parties and year on year for almost thirty years world governments have met to generate a global response to the climate emergency. This year world leaders will be in Scotland and that gives us a once in a lifetime opportunity to create a stooshie around past promises which have been made and then disregarded.

In the minds of scientific experts there is little doubt that governments and nations are miles behind reaching the targets set at COP21 when the so-called Paris Agreement was adopted. Then, the members promised to reduce their carbon output “as soon as possible” and to do their best to keep global warming “well below 20C”. On top of the overwhelming scientific evidence, more and more extreme weather events are underlining the urgency with which we must make changes to the political, economic and industrial models which have brought us to the point where we are endangering the life of our children and our children’s children. As President Obama has said: “We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it”.

There should be no confusion in Christian circles about the sacredness of life and the responsibility we have for the stewardship of the earth. What is more, because climate change disproportionately affects the poor and vulnerable, there can be no mistaking the call on the churches to be engaged actively in the programmes of change which are urgently needed.

The fact of the matter, however, is that the necessary ‘fix’ does not rest with science and politics alone. Alongside the work of scientists and politicians, we require a change of mind-set, a cultural transformation and a profound spiritual awakening. That is the message of Alastair McIntosh’s book, Hell and High Water. There are lots of books which detail the dire nature of the scientific evidence for climate change but there are very few which tackle the deeper questions which relate to the cultural, psychological and spiritual metanoia which is needed in response to this emergency.

This is a time for real change...

Alastair’s opening chapters provide an accessible guide to the science of what is happening to planet earth but it is the latter chapters which tackle the more difficult, even esoteric dimensions of the spiritual malaise which lies behind the trouble that we have brought upon ourselves. He points us in the direction of the sort of inner changes that are needed as we seek to mend a broken world.

Importantly, however, he says, “my call to rekindle [the] inner life....... doesn’t mean we should wallow there! …….We need a dance between the fantastical and the practical; not an apartheid between the two.”

To our Prime Minister and other world leaders who will meet in Glasgow, we say, this is a time for real change but we also remind those same world leaders that the level of change which is required may only come about as a function of our willingness to acknowledge the change which is needed at the deepest level of our inner being. ¤