11 November 2016

Dear Friends,

In 2015, through our General Convention, the LCA accepted the challenge of placing the issue of responsible care of creation before our members. There is no intention of binding congregations or individuals to particular courses of action. Rather, the aim is to encourage the LCA, its congregations and people, to reflect on critical creation-environment-life issues as Christians, Australians and citizens of Earth.

In the spirit of this Synodical decision, today I have released the following message to members of the LCA:

LCA Bishop’s Message on the Marrakech Climate Conference and Interfaith Statement

News of the US presidential elections has overshadowed the fact that world leaders are meeting once again to discuss action on climate change. This year the conference is in Marrakech, Morocco, from 7-18 November. The Marrakech conference follows a landmark conference last year in Paris, France, where national leaders signed an agreement committing them to climate change reduction measures with the aim of limiting global temperature rise to below 2oC, and preferably below 1.5oC.

The Paris Agreement came into effect on Friday 4 November 2016—three years earlier than its expected ratification date of 2020—by reaching its ratification threshold of 55% of nations representing 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions. On Thursday 10 November Australia became the 104th nation to ratify it.

Meanwhile hundreds of high level religious leaders from around the world have put their names to an interfaith statement urging the world’s political leaders to dedicate themselves to swift and just action on climate change. Bishop John Henderson has signed the statement on behalf of his fellow District bishops and the LCA.

Religious leaders recognise that the task of reducing global carbon emissions is enormous and difficult.

May God grant to humankind the wisdom, the creative ideas, the commitment, the empathy and the generosity that we will need to achieve a just transition to a world of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

John Henderson
Bishop
Lutheran Church of Australia