The climate summit in Glasgow could represent the last chance for world leaders to agree a strategy to halt environmental degradation and climate change, the bishops of England and Wales have said.

In a statement released to coincide with the start of the 12-day United Nations COP26 meeting, the bishops said if that God’s creation faced “irreparable damage” if global leaders failed to pledge themselves to meaningful action.

“It is an unassailable fact that the ecological crisis is one of the most pressing social justice issue of our time,” said the statement signed jointly by Bishop Richard Moth of Arundel and Brighton, the lead bishop for social justice, and Bishop John Arnold of Salford, the lead bishop for the environment.

“We are calling on governments to maintain their commitment to keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees,” they said.

“We will also insist that governments commit to supporting the world’s poorest nations, who often find themselves facing the worst effects of climate change despite having done the least to contribute towards it.

“We know that we need to act globally to protect the biodiversity of this earth, and all of God’s creation that depends on it,” they continued.

“The ecological crisis is a human crisis, and we must strive to find solutions that ensure that the communities most vulnerable to the impact of climate change are not left behind in the decisions made by our leaders in Glasgow.”

The bishops added: “The COP26 meeting presents us with a unique, unprecedented, and quite possibly final opportunity to engage in a meaningful global dialogue that will establish attainable targets and policies to address the ecological crisis we are living through right now.”

Initially, it was hoped that Pope Francis would be among more than 30,000 delegates, including about 120 world leaders, but the Vatican delegation is being led by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State.

Francis, who has made care of the environment a central issue of his papacy with his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, instead went on BBC Radio 4 to appeal for humanity to make an “urgent change of direction”.

Cardinal Parolin, speaking to Vatican News on the eve of the summit, said COP26 was important because “it will measure and motivate the collective will and the level of ambition of individual states”.

“We are living at a significant time in our history,” he said.

“Global and cross-sectoral phenomena like the pandemic and climate change have increasingly shown the need for the change of direction called for by Pope Francis, based on the awareness that we all must work together to strengthen the covenant between human beings and the natural environment, with particular concern for the most vulnerable peoples.”

He said: “It is important that COP26 provides a clear collective response, not only in promoting efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change on the part of all countries but also in helping the most vulnerable countries to confront the loss and damage that climate change caused.  Tragically, these are already a reality in many contexts.”

Cardinal Parolin said the world possessed the means and resources to change direction but “what still appears lacking is a clear political will”. 

Ahead of the summit, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, wrote to the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to encourage him to lead global efforts to respond to the challenges of climate change.

Describing the global ecological crisis as “a dark cloud over humanity”, he emphasised that the Catholic faith “calls us to care for our common home with all people of good will”.

Mr Johnson has already emerged as a passionate advocate of action to protect the environment, telling delegates on the first day of the summit that “we face nothing less than a mortal threat to our planet and to our civilisation, to our way of life”.

The Queen and the Prince of Wales are also keen to see a global consensus emerge from the event that will halt and reverse ecological destruction.

Her Majesty, 95, who will also miss the conference amid concerns about her health, told leaders via video “to rise above the politics of the moment, and achieve true statesmanship”.

The Queen told delegates that “none of us will live forever” and “we are doing this not for ourselves but for our children and our children’s children, and those who will follow in their footsteps”.

Christine Allen, the director of Cafod, wrote in The Times that it was particularly necessary to reform structures of food production and distribution, end pollution and the destruction of nature, and to address the problem of Third World debt.

Pope Francis made three key radical demands when it comes to tackling the climate crisis. One, that “big food corporations to stop imposing monopolistic production and distribution structures that inflate prices and end up withholding bread from the hungry”.

“This is challenging, but so necessary,” she wrote. “Whether it be limiting temperature rises, adequate financing or consigning fossil fuels to history, we cannot afford any more empty promises. The time is now.”

(Photo of Bishop Arnold with plastic bricks at his Wardley Hall residence by Simon Caldwell)

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