Australia is witnessing an ever-increasing response to the use of fossil fuels, exports of these fuels, and the granting of new mining licences to international organisations. This response – in part – is shown in demonstrations, protests, banning of protests by state government and a certain disregard of free speech and human rights. Bishop Philip Huggins – patron of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change and a member of the UN Interfaith Liaison Committee to the Climate Change Conferences gave an address to the Rising Tide event in Canberra.
Reflections by Bishop Philip Huggins
Bishop Huggins shares this reflection given in Canberra at the Rising Tide event.
Thank you for this invitation.
‘No more coal and gas’ is a loving and a wise thing to do.
It’s a good idea to do things that are both loving and wise!
May I Offer Three Reflections?
- On the hope that is vivid here today.
- On UN COP29, just concluded.
- On what we need from our Federal Parliament-meeting now, just up the hill from us.
Regarding The HOPE here now:
Obviously,I am a person of faith and hope.
God gives us all that we need in order to flourish.
All of us… all living beings on this beautiful planet of divine creation.
Using our creativity is our gift back to God and to one another.
Through this movement I know there are so many wonderfully creative people doing their utmost.
Doing this as a matter of love.
Love of each other; Love of clean oceans ; Love of folk in Fiji and faraway other places; Love of koalas, kookaburras, waratahs and wallabies…
True love never coerces.
We are free to create a better future … free in the divine love … but we feel the vulnerability of this.
Thankfully, there is this community. Lots of wonderfully creative people doing all they can as peace builders and climate actors.
We are alongside some today.
Please turn and greet each other in peace and with a wave!
Relatedly, two cameos from my week …
Last Saturday I celebrated the wedding of a couple born in an African refugee camp – a tough setting – their country of origin is still a violent mess.
But, with their family,t hey found hospitality and welcome here in Australia and are flourishing as Peace builders and Climate activists.
It’s a magnificent story … …
Personally … and magnificent about us as a nation.
I asked them what they loved about each other.
They spoke for days!
About seemingly little things like attention to one’s tone of voice.
And the big things which build resilient trust in sustainable peaceful relationships.
Another story:
Just before this event, I was in the Riverina with cousins who are farmers. I saw cooperation between folk from CSIRO, ecologists from Charles Sturt University, indigenous elders and my cousins in terms of helping land recover and providing pastures that now take account of how the climate has changed and is changing.
At a local level there are so many such wonderful and cooperative partnerships, as we here well know.
Our family home is by the sea … people are cooperating to prevent rising tides sweeping all we cherish away.
The Council, just elected, has a strong mandate and plan for climate action.
There are so many uplifting stories, aren’t there?
The point is, a renewable future is arriving.
We can see it. We feel the hope but also know the urgency.
Hence our advocacy here today.
2. UN COP 29 – The Climate Change Conference, Azerbaijan
I have been following the UN Climate Change conferences for some years, attending when possible.
They are crucial to implementing the Paris Agreement in a timely fashion.
That is …ASAP…
Before the goal of containing the rise in global temperatures to that target of 1.5° is, alas, a complete fantasy.
The UN Climate Change conferences are part of the UN – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC].
But our multi-lateral systems are so overloaded and so stressed …
As are many of the participants, including the dear UN Secretary-General …
In recent days we have seen him pleading for cooperation at the UN General Assembly in New York, then pleading for urgent climate action at COP in Baku, then in South America at the G20 conference.
Trust between so many nations is really low right now.
There are too many leaders who can’t seem to imagine anything better than another weapon-system.
In fact right now,there are the largest number of conflicts since World War II. We see the suffering of innocents; the millions who are displaced by war and violence.
Preventative measures of peacebuilding are difficult when multilateral systems are stressed – responding to endless crises.
You will have seen the tense, fractious way in which COP 29 finished.
A Quaker Friend who has followed the UN Climate Change Conferences as her vocation and has taught me much about the details of the negotiations, says it’s now a weird situation where we gather to avoid the obvious.
The obvious is that we are not reaching international agreement fast enough.
Many gifted, committed Australians contribute at COP – our Ministers, diplomats and negotiators. They are dedicated and work very hard.
But it’s obvious that we’re not cooperating internationally well enough and fast enough to make the targets and prevent climate catastrophe.
3. So then,what can be Australia’s role in this context?
United Australian leadership is so needed internationally.
Currently my Quaker expert friend says nearly every wealthy fossil fuel extraction country is increasing its production!
Increasing!
No wonder nations, still trying to develop, were furious at the final outcome of COP29.
Including nations in our Asia Pacific region. Delegates knew they were going home to places that are not equipped to deal with what is happening.
A Filipino colleague at COP29 spoke of going home to where there have been 6 typhoons in rapid succession. Many at COP, anguished, return to places that are ill-equipped to deal with the ‘Loss and Damage’ they have already experienced. Let alone better adapt now to what will keep happening!
[That is why COP 29 had such a strong focus on Finance and why there is such frustration with what was delivered].
The world needs gifted hope.
Uplifting, practical hope.
One nation really showing how to make this transition together.
Who is better placed than us?
The thing is – we know that making this transition to renewables is very complex.
It needs wonderful cooperation not division. Not the use of complexity as a way of making anxious people even more anxious!
We can be the place where common sense, science and love are imaginatively, creatively united.
Already, as in this ‘Rising Tide Movement’, Australia is a place where wonderfully gifted people are offering their training, their expertise, their best years … and their hearts to this renewable transition.
We just need our Federal Parliament to lift.
To be the cherry on the top!T he cherry on the top of this hill!
To express the quality of bipartisan cooperation that a complex matter and a crisis actually requires.
To unite us … Inspire us …
This is our advocacy today – our yearning – the prayer of our hearts.
It is our song.
It’s a song of Love and Wisdom.
Which has to have clear resolve: No more gas and coal!
[NOTE: These are the Reflections I prepared. But, as I went onto the stage to speak we were aware a huge storm was about to break upon our gathering. Hence, I conveyed these three points much more succinctly, making space for ‘A Chorus of Women’ and for the following speakers. The disruptive storm seemed to have its own physical and metaphysical significance].
BISHOP PHILIP HUGGINS
Monday, 1 December 2024
Bishop Philip Huggins is a bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne. In 2019, he was appointed Director of Centre for Ecumenical Studies at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. Bishop Huggins is a Patron of Australian Religious Response to Climate Change, and member of the Interfaith Liaison Committee to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Bishop Huggins is also a member of the National Executive of Religions for Peace Australia.
