A fossil free Church of Ireland


Speech to General Synod on 17 May 2019,

I’d like to draw Synod’s attention to the investment performance in 2018 on pages 30 and 31. It was a difficult year but the RCB investment committee and staff must be thanked for their superb work on behalf of the church. The returns from invested funds help to support the mission and ministry of the church.

This reminds me that last year synod passed a motion to fully divest from all fossil fuels by 2022.

Actually, following that successful motion, a member of our Diocesan Council asked me how he could ethically invest his retirement lump sum. I told him that his investment manager could exclude unethical investments like fossil fuels. Six months later, he told me his investment manager had looked into it the options and was himself surprised to find out that green investment packages had performed better than traditional ones. He was going to recommend to other clients that they too should exclude fossil fuels.

New evidence produced by the IPCC in the last year shows we only have 11 years to cut worldwide emissions in half to prevent a dangerous climate crisis. Mark Carney, the chairman of the Bank of England, said in March we need an “urgent reallocation of capital”.

Coming back to page 31 in the Book of Reports, the ESG review of 2018. The motion that passed at last year’s Synod encouraged the RCB to continue collaborative engagement, to increase green investments, and to exclude all fossil fuel producers by 2022.

But the review on page 31 fails to mention the motion that passed at Synod 2018. In fact, I think is not mentioned anywhere in this year’s Book of Reports at all. I do hope that this oversight will be corrected in due course.

The good news is that collaborative engagement has continued, the RCB’s green investments now exceed those of fossil fuels by a considerable margin. And the RCB now only directly invests in just one fossil fuel producer.

Over the next year, a comprehensive review of both direct and indirect investments is needed to align the RCB policy to the will of Synod and finish the job.

We are almost there. I hope that this time next year I can tell you that we no longer invest in extracting fossil fuels from the ground, that we do the right thing and keep it the in the ground.

I hope that in 2020, I can tell you that the Church of Ireland is a fossil free church.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Care for Creation - new growth in Ireland

Image
It is been quite a year for Care for Creation in Irish Churches, perhaps it could even be called a season of new growth. And it all came about because of two teenage girls speaking passionately. Tori and Isobella from Mullingar Parish in county Meath spoke for a few minutes at the Irish Churches Creation Care conference and captured the hearts of the audience and explained what creation care is all about.  You can see the moment below, Their project Lighten Our Darkness by Numbers is a youth-led response to climate change. They are educating church goers, engaging communities, building bridges to businesses, and enhancing biodiversity in church graveyards.   This short talk from the girls had a deep impact on the Archbishop of Armagh, and he spoke about it at his presidential address in General Synod.  Archbishop John McDowell said, We need to do what that group of young people from Westmeath are doing. That is, to work on ways of inspiring and equipping parishes t...
Read more

Speech to General Synod 2022

Image
Photo from Stephen Spillane The support from the RCB to parishes, dioceses and cathedrals during the Covid-19 emergency was most welcome. It helped us worship in difficult at times. May I suggest we use this model of support to respond to other emergencies too. The World Health Organisation said in October last year that, “the single biggest health threat facing humanity” is Climate change. We must take decisive action. I want to thank the RCB for leading the way by divesting and supporting the Creation Care Conference in April.  But it is also up to every diocese, every parish, and every one of us to take action. We need a grassroots movement to transform our churches and our lives for a sustainable future. And church leaders, you might need to sow some fresh seed to help the grass roots grow. I think the RCB can support this movement by responding to the Climate Emergency, just as it did with Covid. For example, How many of you clergy have lived in a cold and draf...
Read more

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland to vote on fossil fuel divestment

Image
  Photo by  Lukasz Szmigiel  on  Unsplash There have been a number of very positive statements from the PCI in the last few months on climate change, and today there is an opportunity for action to stop funding fossil fuels. The church's decision to support The Climate Sundays initiative is really positive. The moderator is encouraging congregations across Ireland to set aside one Sunday in October as `Climate Sunday' to focus on God's creation and humanity's responsibility to be good stewards of it. Rev Dr David Bruce also produced a Climate Conversation video to outline briefly some of the theological reasons why Christians should take climate change seriously and care for creation. This is all very welcome. Another key moment will be today, Tuesday 5th October, when the General Assembly will vote on a motion to divest from fossil fuels. It aims to fully divest from fossil fuel production companies that it holds - that's £5m in BP, Shell and Total - and to engag...
Read more