Divine intervention: How religious leaders are using their influence to urge climate action

As the Dalai Lama joins the Pope in calling for greater climate action, Daisy Dunne looks at the role that faith leaders are playing in tackling the crisis

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is introduced to guests during the Conversations with His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Ryogoku Kokugikan on November 25, 2013 in Tokyo, Japan. The Dalai Lama spoke with guests on 'Making the best use of the wisdom of Buddhism in daily life.' The Dalai Lama on a 12-day visit to Japan. (Keith Tsuji/Getty Images)

“Buddha would have been green.” Those were the powerful words from the Dalai Lama this week, as he made a “climate appeal” to the world through the release of a new book. “Simply meditating or praying for change is not enough,” he said. “There has to be action.”

His words came as the US president-elect Joe Biden received a call from the Pope on Thursday. According to an official statement, Mr Biden, a devout Catholic, told Pope Francis that he would work with him in “addressing the crisis of climate change”.

Pope Francis has previously been outspoken about the climate crisis. In 2015, he wrote an environment-themed Encyclical Letter, a letter aimed at guiding all faith holders, in which he described the climate crisis as “a global problem with grave implications” and asked his followers to consider what kind of planet they wanted to leave to their children.

The letter was widely seen as a watershed moment for the Catholic Church and its involvement in climate action. It came several months ahead of the historic 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty aimed at limiting global temperature rise to below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

This year, Pope Francis spoke out once more about the climate crisis. In September, he said that the Covid-19 pandemic had shown how the Earth could recover “if allowed to rest”. “In some ways, the current pandemic has led us to rediscover simpler and sustainable lifestyles,” he said in a written message.

Around the same time, senior faith leaders from across the UK wrote an open letter to the government to call for a “green recovery” for the Covid-19 pandemic. The letter was signed by Rabbi Tanya Sakhnovich from the Nottingham Liberal Synagogue, Imam Sayed Razawi FRSA, chief imam at the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society and Rt Revd Woyin Karowei Dorgu, the bishop of Woolich, among others.

It said: “Our faiths teach us that our planet, with its rich resources and inspiring diversity, is lent to us on trust only and we are accountable for how we treat it. We are urgently and inescapably responsible, not just before God but to our own children and the very future of humanity.

“This unique moment calls us to develop a shared new vision for our future which we cannot afford to miss. As faith leaders we are committed to working alongside the people and governments of this nation and the world to formulate and live by such a vision.”

The growing involvement of faith leaders in climate action partly stems from a growing awareness of how urgent the issue is, explains James Buchanan, a campaign manager at Operation Noah, a Christian climate charity.

“Another reason is because the climate crisis is a moral issue,” he tells The Independent. “The people who are the most affected by it are the ones that have done the least to cause it. That makes it a justice issue.”

Since the start of industrialisation, the world has seen around 1C of global warming, on average. However, research shows rates of warming are highest in many of the world’s poorest countries.

In addition, the climate crisis is causing an increase in the severity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and typhoons. Such events have a higher impact on disadvantaged populations, which are the least likely to have protection measures.

“Pope Francis talks about needing to hear the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor,” says Mr Buchanan.

Similarly, in his new book released this week, the Dalai Lama, who has more than 500 million followers across the world, called for “more compassion” for both the people and the planet.

“Over-exploitation of our natural resources results from ignorance and greed, and a lack of respect for life on Earth,” he wrote. “Saving the world from the climate crisis is our common responsibility.”

As well as having a better understanding of the impacts of the climate crisis, faith leaders are also starting to see the need to “get their own homes in order”, says Mr Buchanan.

In May of this year, 42 faith institutions from 14 countries announced that they would divest from fossil fuels. At the time, Tomás Insua, executive director of Global Catholic Climate Movement, said: “Every dollar invested in fossil fuels is a vote for suffering ... Now more than ever, we need to protect our communities and build a just recovery together.”

This was followed by the release of a set of environmental guidelines from the Vatican in June. In the first-of-its-kind 225-page manual, Pope Francis urged all Catholics to divest from fossil fuels.

“On the global level, Laudato Si’ insists on the need to replace, ‘progressively and without delay’, technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels,” the guidelines read.