Churches Urged to Fight Climate Change, Join Blackout London

As the 'I Count' rally approaches, Churches are increasingly urging congregants to take part in the fight against climate change. Taking place 4 November, the aim is to urge the UK government to take responsibility personally and nationally to reduce the causes of climate change.

The rally is being organised by Stop Climate Chaos, a growing coalition of many of the UK's leading environment, development and women's organisations, activist and faith-based groups. Its members include Cafod, Christian Aid and Tearfund.

In addition, to the rally, individuals and businesses are being encouraged to take part in a blackout in London as part of a night of "non-power" in the nation's capital.

Entitled "Blackout London", the powerdown is being called at Sunset from 4.30 pm until 7.30 pm on 4th November.

Organisations are asking the public to turn out the lights and switch off unessential equipment at this time, with the aim of increasing 'negawatts' and reducing 'megawatts' at local power stations.

The new initiative is taking place following a major climate change summit last week which brought together leaders from the world's 20 top polluting countries in Mexico to tackle the crisis as part of the G8 Gleneagles dialogue. As the summit wrapped up Wednesday, Tearfund called for more urgency to address the problem.

The Christian relief and development agency has expressed its "relief" that the world's top 20 polluting countries finally agreed at the summit that the climate change problem was undeniable.

It stressed, however, that much more needed to be done: "This is a modest step only. For most of the rest of the planet, the fact of climate change is common-knowledge. And until consensus over the science is matched with more ambitious targets and policy measures to tackle climate change, there will be little positive progress, particularly for the poorest people of the world."