The Way Forward
on Climate Change

The Way Forward on Climate Change

by Media Statement from the National Council of Churches of Australia (NCCA)

The Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Canberra and the NCCA co-hosted a seminar on Thursday 6 February to reflect on and inform the way forward on Australia’s climate change policy.

The seminar was addressed by Australia’s Ambassador for the Environment, Mr Jamie Isbister, which was followed by a question and answer session.

In the lead-up to the seminar Bishop Philip Huggins, President of the NCCA who attended the UN Climate Change Conference UNFCCC – COP25 in

Madrid in December 2019, shared his reflections on the way forward on climate change policy.

‘In charity, let us assume we are all learning together about climate change. Most of us are on a learning curve’ Bishop Philip Huggins says.

‘With the fires still raging and after much loss, aware too that brave and exhausted folk are still hard at work, the national debate about climate change is nevertheless occupying our hearts and minds more and more’ the Bishop points out.

Bishop Huggins, who is also Director of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture’s Centre for Ecumenical Studies, says that ‘going to COP25 was an act of faith that I feel was guided by the One who, as an Epiphany prayer conveys, ‘brought the universe into being’ and who has ‘given us this earth to care for and delight in’.

‘I knew I had much to learn, even as I tried to make a prayerful, loving and helpful contribution in various seminars and meetings. The one thing I had been made aware of was that those who have been much involved in this international framework and program to prevent climate change, need our pastoral care and encouragement.’

Bishop Huggins comments that ‘it is quite a burden to carry the knowledge of what is happening to the planet at the same time as knowing that the necessary political co-operation is not evolving fast enough'.