What we’re aiming for
At the moment, money from government subsidies, investments of churches and pension funds, and our own bank accounts supports the fossil fuel industry and continues to fuel climate change. We need to make the Big Shift away from fossil fuels and into renewable energy so that we can build a cleaner, safer world. And money is key!
We aim to:
- phase out fossil fuels
- adopt renewable energy
- keep global temperature rise below two degrees from pre-industrial levels.
Latest update
So far, more than 3,500 churches either switched to clean electricity or pledged to do so. More than 5,000 emails have been sent to the UK's four biggest banks calling for their plans on how they’ll shift investments into renewable energy that can bring about a world in which all God’s people can flourish.
We’ve got big plans for this year. Can you join in?
Tell your bank to make The Big Shift
‘Who can stop climate change? We can. We have a responsibility to do so that began when God commanded the earliest human inhabitants of the Garden of Eden to 'till it and keep it'. To keep it; not to abuse it, not to destroy it’Desmond Tutu
Related news and blogs
Want to take the Big Shift to your local bank this Autumn? Here's how to join a visit to your local branch.
Find out how The Big Shift campaign – to direct investments out of fossil fuels and into clean, renewable energy – is going worldwide.
Our climate campaign so far
2007
Evidence from our partners shows that climate change is rendering traditional methods to tackle poverty inadequate. In Burkina Faso, for example, approximately 250,000 families rely on water from the Louda Dam, but there has been very little in it over the past few years as a result of changing weather patterns. We predict that by 2020, climate change could leave up to 250 million more sub-Saharan Africans in poverty.
Hundreds of campaigners take part in our Cut the Carbon march. The following year, the UK government passes the Climate Change Act – the world’s first act to contain legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions.
2009
Ahead of the Copenhagen climate talks, 50,000 campaigners demonstrate support for action on climate change at The Wave climate march in London.
2010
We call on companies to come clean about their own carbon emissions and for the UK government to make sure this transparency is enforced by law. Finally, in 2012, they announce that carbon reporting will become mandatory by law.
2011
At the climate talks in Durban, we campaign for, but ultimately fail to save, the Kyoto Protocol – a key piece of legislation drafted to ensure that national climate targets are legally binding.
Alongside Tearfund and CAFOD, we continue to support the church to be at the heart of the climate movement in the UK. At our Bearing Witness event in Manchester, thousands of churchgoers call on the new government to keep its promise to be the greenest ever.
2012
After years of campaigning, we finally help get the World Bank out of funding coal power stations in middle-income countries.
2014
The People’s Climate Marches take place around the globe as the UN meets for a special climate change summit in New York. These are the biggest climate marches the world had seen to date.
During the Hunger for Justice weekend, churches lobby MPs to put climate at the heart of party manifestos ahead of the 2015 General Election. In York, Archbishop Sentamu welcomes Filipino climate activist Voltaire Alferez to address the York Synod about climate change.
2015
Thousands of Christian Aid supporters take part in Speak Up – the biggest ever lobby of parliament on climate justice. More than 330 MPs hear our demands that the newly elected government take action on climate change.
We see great strides in climate campaigning as the UK announces a phase out of coal in October 2015.
In November, the biggest UK climate march ever takes place in London as part of a weekend of marches for the climate around the world.
A historic deal at the UN climate talks in Paris has the potential to be a new dawn for climate campaigning.
A cleaner future is possible
Fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) need to be left in the ground if we are to protect God’s earth. But governments and institutions (including the banks that hold our current accounts) still have money tied up in their extraction.
Now more than ever, we need to put our money where our prayers are, and make the big shift from dirty fossil fuels into clean energy for a better future for everyone.