Church of Scotland Body Wants Urgent Action on Climate Change

The Church of Scotland General Assembly is to hear plans challenging all individual Church members to make significant lifestyle changes to reduce their use of energy and their consumption of the Earth's resources.

The Kirk's Church & Society Council will unveil its paper "Energy for a Changing Climate", which warns that major changes need to be made in order to avert the worst consequences of climate change and urges churches to become like Westray Church in Orkney, which is now completely self-sufficient in renewable energy.

The paper highlights the need for urgent action on the government, community and individual level and encourages people to buy environmentally friendly products, choose green energy suppliers and lobby Government on environmental issues.

In addition to this, the Council will ask to make changes to the five-year property reviews carried out in congregations so that Presbyteries include an environmental energy assessment as one of the criteria that they use when considering the condition of local church property.

"Plentiful energy has transformed our lives and become integral to our society, but it has also brought major environmental and social costs, most especially in climate change," says the report.

The Church & Society Council has warned that climate change is as much a social issue as an environmental one, and that it is bringing "profound" suffering, disruption and injustice.

"The poorest countries and people suffer earliest and most. They are generally in hotter regions, more vulnerable to climatic effect and heavily dependent on agriculture," the report says.

The paper identifies transport as the fastest growing sector of energy use and calls for a radical reduction in both car use and air travel. It criticises the UK Government for increasing the amounts spent on roads and airport building, and for abolishing the fuel duty escalator - the mechanism through which the relative price of petrol is steadily increased over time.

The Church & Society Council's paper opposes the construction of new fossil fuel power stations or the expansion of the nuclear energy sector as a means to generate electricity in the UK.

It also proposes that people living in the vicinity of wind farms receive compensation for the negative visual impact, such as cheaper fuel, lower council taxes or the provision of a local amenity such as a hospital.