Methodist Church's Steve Hucklesby on Climate Change

Last Thursday senior representatives of the aviation industry joined with Christian leaders and environmental campaigners to debate the impact of aviation industry's relentless growth on the climate change problem.

The debate was organised by the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility (ECCR) and held at the Methodist Church House and those present included Martyn Graham, Society of British Aerospace Companies, Jason Torrance of Transport 2000, and Chris Goater of the Airport Operators Association.

Senior members of the Methodist Church were also present, including Dudley Coates, Vice President of the Methodist Conference, and Steve Hucklesby, the Methodist Church's Secretary for International Affairs.

The outcome meanwhile was relatively foregone - the aviation industry's growth will make it impossible for the Government to reach its targets for cuts in carbon emissions by 2050.

Following the debate, Coates expressed his support for the Transport 2000 representative, Torrance, who called for an expansion of the UK's rail network as part of the long-term solution to the carbon emission problem.

Torrance stressed during the debate that the world is facing an "international climate crisis" and stressed that the aviation industry was not being singled out for particularly harsh treatment, as claimed by Goater, but really was "one of the major contributors" to the current climate crisis.

"We are in a situation that demands not just technical fixes, more than just tinkering, but an intense change in our current attitudes," said Torrance, who warned that aviation emissions alone could exceed UK government targets for cuts in greenhouse gases by 134 per cent.

After the debate, Christian Today spoke to the Methodist Church's Steve Hucklesby to find out just how big a problem climate change is and more importantly what Christians and the Church could be doing to fix the problem.

CT: From a Christian perspective what are the moral ethical dimensions of the aviation problem? How much is aviation a big demon in the climate change problem?

SH: I think carbon dioxide emissions are the big demon. How much aviation is in terms of the overall share is a more complex question. Carbon dioxide emissions are the big problem. From a Christian perspective you can look at this from the point of view of the injustice in that historically the developed world are responsible for the carbon dioxide emissions which are changing our climate today and yet it is the developing world, the poorer nations, that will be impacted most seriously and there is an obvious injustice in that imbalance.

From a Christian perspective again another way we might look at this as Christians is in terms of God's Creation. And God has entrusted His Creation to us to use and to look after. Now in the past we have tended to emphasise in our minds 'to use'. But in fact that is not a true biblical perspective.

God is very clear throughout the Old and New Testament that God's promise of the earth to us, He's given it to us as a trusteeship for us to look after. Sadly society today, you can value anything, including natural resources, in terms of dollars and cents or pounds and pence.

So we do need to connect somehow with people on the moral issue to say no there is intrinsic value in our earth; there are environmental limits to what we can do in our economies.

How will you be guiding the Christians of your Church? Thanks to aviation, we can work in London and Edinburgh on the same day. How should the individual Christian balance what is desirable or practical on a day-to-day basis with what is good for the environment?

I think the first thing is to become informed, to put the problem of global warming to people, to put the facts to them and the facts then determine the moral argument. It's the responsibility of each of us to act. I think that's the first thing.

How do we act? Well, we, I think, have to act in two ways. We have to act voluntarily in terms of our own lifestyles, to really seriously think about our own lifestyles. Not just tweaking them here and there, not just doing more recycling, but to really thoroughly examine the way in which we are using the earth's resources in our own lives and our own households and there are mechanisms like the carbon calculator that help you to evaluate this.

But secondly I think it's important for us to act politically. And if we are taking voluntary responses in our own lifestyles then that gives us quite some credibility when we come to our MP and say look I'm taking this action, what action are you taking to address this major problem of climate change.

That's necessary because voluntary responses alone won't solve the climate change problem.

Would you agree with Dudley Coates who said that he doesn't think the churches are doing enough to focus in on this issue? Would you agree with that?

I think the churches are not doing enough, I think the society in general is not doing enough. We all need to do more. There is a campaign building within the churches under Operation Noah. Operation Noah is the UK churches' campaign on climate change. And there is huge interest in this campaign and in other initiatives within the churches which are addressing environmental problems.

For example, we are looking to mobilise people to come to the Stop Climate Chaos demonstration in Trafalgar Square on the 4 November where we hope to have a mass demonstration there which will demonstrate very clearly and obviously the strength of feeling there is about cutting carbon and the inadequacy of current policies.

Are you satisfied with what the government has done on this so far?

I am very pleased with the way the government has raised the issue at the international level. I think Tony Blair to make it a focus of the G8 in 2005 was an excellent initiative. Sadly I think that the action which the government could take domestically has fallen behind that. And there is certainly a lot more that the government could already have done and must do in the future.

The government will respond saying 'Well, we are looking for society to give us the cues'. I think society's given them the cues. They will certainly be hearing that more in the coming years. We need more creative thinking and some creative policies from our government, from our MPs, to really tackle this problem bravely and seriously.

The difficulty is of course that the payback, the impact, won't take place within any parliamentary session or even within the scope of a term of a government or prime minister, so to tackle this problem as rapidly as we need to tackle it we need to be thinking long term.