England

Church of England invests millions to slash its carbon emissions


Hattie Williams. Church Times.

FURTHER tens of millions of pounds are to be pumped into efforts to drastically reduce the Church of England’s carbon emissions over the next six years, the first impact report on its net-zero programme says.

The report summarises progress on the General Synod’s ambition to achieve net zero by 2030, which was set in 2020 (News, 12 February 2020). The Synod approved a “route map” to this goal two years later (News, 15 July 2022).

In real terms, the target is to decrease the Church’s emissions — mainly from its buildings — by 90 per cent against the current baseline: 415,000 tonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent (415,000T CO2e). The remaining ten per cent is to be offset by carbon-cancelling schemes, such as tree-planting and installing solar panels.

Islandia

Why churches should keep their doors open

Church Times.

NO COUNTY has more medieval churches than Norfolk. Earlier this year, I spent a sabbatical walking between more than 200 of them. The glories of Norfolk’s churches are manifold; chief among those glories is that so many of these churches are open each day.

Keeping churches open is not simply about scratching the itch of church-crawlers. There is a theological and missional imperative for keeping churches — rural and urban — open as much as possible.

Christian protesters join march for nature through London

(Aili Channer. Church Times).

CHRISTIAN groups came together last Saturday to host a service of “prayer and lament for creation” at the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, London, before joining more than 60,000 people on a march through London to protest against the drastic decline of the wildlife in the UK, and damage to the ecosystem.

The Restore Nature Now march was organised by a coalition of environmental organisations: Extinction Rebellion was joined by some of the biggest nature charities in the UK, including the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts, the Climate Coalition, WWF UK, the National Trust, WWT, Woodland Trust, Wildlife and Countryside Link, and Rewilding Britain

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