Welby: the selfish rich must act to tackle climate change

THE selfishness of the rich risks climate change “wreaking havoc” on the world’s poorest, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, has warned.

During a speech to the decennial Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, the Archbishop said that the Church was a “revolutionary force” that needed to be able to “challenge the selfishness of the rich”.

“Look at the failure to share the Covid-19 vaccine. Now multiply [that] several thousand times to an age shortly to come, when climate change wreaks havoc around the world, where sea levels rise,” he said.

“Will the rich withdraw behind high, armour–protected walls? Or will we seek together to do right? It is the churches, acting together ecumenically, united, that have the global networks to do right.”

He added that the Church was one of “revolutionaries” and quoted the Magnificat sung prayer he said was banned by the East India Company in colonial India to prevent locals from realising God “might be on their side against tyranny”. The prayer talks of how God “brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

Protecting the environment has been a central theme of the Lambeth Conference this year, with many of the more than 650 bishops in attendance representing developing countries on the front line of climate change.

On Wednesday, the Archbishop launched the Communion Forest project aimed at harnessing Anglican churches as forces for environmental conservation.

He also condemned oil and gas companies that were paying large dividends off the back of record profits rather than investing more in their net zero goals.

The Church of England retains some investments in fossil fuel companies on the basis that it can influence them toward greener policies.

Welby also obliquely addressed the divisions that have wracked the conference over gay marriage.

He said: “We are not at liberty to choose who are our brothers and sisters. Of course we have groups with different views. Of course they are God’s gift to us, because the different view will often challenge us and change our minds, it can be prophetic. But we do not, as I said earlier, go down the road of expelling other Christians.”